Newcastle mark progress under Howe with disappointment in Man City draw

Newcastle learned a familiar lesson, as Manchester City rallied from 3-1 to claim a draw on a dramatic afternoon at Tyneside.

It was a far cry from the days of Gordon McKeag and Peter Swales as the UAE and Saudi Arabia met on a sunny summer afternoon in Tyneside. The days of these two clubs as serial underachievers are long gone. We are approaching the complete domination of the European game demanded by its owners. The other is just beginning the same journey.

The Abu Dhabi project is well into its second decade, and things are going pretty well. The ultimate prize, the Champions League, has not yet arrived, but the Premier League has been colonized, the competition has managed to be reduced to one, at a stroke. The Premier League has been won for four of the last five years. They started this season as favorites to win it again and arrived at Newcastle having won victories in their opening two games of the season without conceding a goal.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, are making their debut at Newcastle. The expense was significant but not as lavish as some might have expected, but they hired the right coach and he got the team to safety last season. The new season started quite brightly with four points taken - and no goals conceded - in their first two games, against Nottingham Forest and Brighton.

This match is a prototype version of a vision for the future of football, but it took Newcastle less than six minutes to receive some sort of reminder of how far they need to catch up if they are to fully realize the aspirations of their new owners.

The Manchester City side ooze class from every pore, and it took just five minutes for Ilkay Gundogan to slip between two half-asleep defenders to score a goal that undermined the many good things that had been said about the Newcastle defense over the course of the previous two games.

But Newcastle grew up in it. Open play and the vast swell of noise from the crowd invited them to throw players forward and when they attacked, particularly at the break, the Manchester City defense creaked a bit. Ederson had to make saves and clear opportunities were dismissed.

After 29 minutes, a VAR call on a borderline offside gave Miguel Almiron one of the weirdest goals of the Premier League season so far, deflected off his hip after he pounced on the ball like a man trying to smother a bomb. Less than ten minutes later, the first-half turnaround was complete when Allan Saint-Maximin, who was all hustle, bustle and muscle, passed the ball to Callum Wilson, who entered the interior and marked.

There is something fundamentally odd about seeing a team of Manchester City's quality being shown a thing or two by well-drilled and creative opposition. You can see the quality hasn't just disappeared. Phil Foden hasn't temporarily forgotten how to play football. Kevin De Bruyne's peripheral vision is more supernatural than ever. But as Newcastle rushed forward, their defense played as if they couldn't handle being attacked.

Erling Haaland had gone through the first half like a ghost, but five minutes after the beak he recalled his ability, pushing at full speed and breaking through the Newcastle defense before sending a low shot that hit the basis of the Publish. He had barely been involved in the first half, but it has already become abundantly clear that he only needs to be barely involved in a game to change his result on a fundamental level.