- Alexander Isak put Newcastle in front with the aid of a deflection before half time
- Isak scored a second before setting up Anthony Gordon to wrap up the win
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Eddie Howe is now keeping company with Kevin Keegan and Rafa Benitez as the orchestrater of a club-record nine straight wins – the next step is to leave that pair looking up at him on the podium.
Keegan and Benitez won lots of matches and just as many hearts, but no major trophies. Howe can. He and his players have a glint in their eye and silverware in their sights.
And why can’t that be the Premier League, in a season of no runaway leader and with pace-setters Liverpool just starting to slow?
None of their rivals have Alexander Isak, scorer of another two goals here to make it 12 in his last 10 games and 17 for the season. He also got an assist and saved a goal with a challenge inside his own goalmouth. What next? Swap his cape for gloves and go in goal for penalties?
None of Newcastle’s rivals have Sandro Tonali or Bruno Guimaraes, either. To think, we wondered if they could even play together just over a month ago, with the team stuck in the bottom half of the table. Now, they are artist and aggressor, and those roles are interchangeable.
It is mystifying to remember Tonali charging up and down blind alleys as a No.8 during the first part of this season. A player of his vision should never be partially sighted. The Italian deserves to have the full picture in front of him and, from No.6, he continues to make strokes that others simply cannot.
Alexander Isak scored in either half to put Newcastle on their way to a ninth straight win
His first goal took a huge deflection, while his second was coolly slotted past Jose Sa
Eddie Howe’s team are flying and must now be targeting a trophy this season
‘Sandro’s contribution was massive, I thought he was excellent,’ said Howe.
When you have the likes of Isak and Anthony Gordon in front of you, those images are certainly easier to see. Gordon was the other scorer, for a fourth straight game. There is class and confidence running through Newcastle’s forward players as quickly and ferociously as they’re running through opposition defences at present.
The only defence who could keep them out, on current form, is their own. This was a sixth clean sheet amid those nine wins and Dan Burn and Sven Botman are a centre-back pairing disproving the theory that two lefties can’t play together. For them, everything feels right.
It says much for Newcastle’s mid-season revival that supporters spent the eve of this game debating what was the best result between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool, the teams in third and first before this round of fixtures. A draw, it was determined, gave them the chance to gain two points on both, and so it was.
The danger, as Howe had warned, was the assumption that the visit of Wolves meant another three points. The scar tissue remains from home defeats by West Ham and Brighton in the autumn. But winter has been a scorcher on Tyneside and, on a mild night beneath a full moon, they again sent the mercury rising.
Isak’s opener on 34 minutes needed a slice of good fortune in the form of a heavy deflection off Rayan Ait-Norui, diverting his 20-yard shot away from a well-positioned Jose Sa. The goalkeeper looked like a man who had made provisions for rain only to find a hole in his umbrella.
But when Isak bounced through three Wolves jerseys minus his customary control, you sensed that luck was on his side. Not that the record books care for aesthetics and an eighth straight Premier League game in which he has scored is a club best.
Isak had his second before the hour, this time accepting the cutest of passes from Guimaraes before sweeping beyond an exposed Sa.
Jorgen Strand Larsen hit the post when Wolves were only 1-0 down in the first half, and was also denied by the woodwork after the break
He was made to pay for his misses as Anthony Gordon added a third goal for Newcastle
Howe heaped praise on Sandro Tonali after his dominant performance in midfield
‘This is the hardest league in the world to score goals and the record is an incredible achievement,’ said Howe. ‘He has added classic centre-forward goals, too – right place, right time. It is an art form.’
Meanwhile, Wolves boss Vitor Pereira was not happy with forward Mario Lemina, absent here.
‘I cannot bring a player who comes to me and says he’s not in a condition mentally to help the team, “I want to leave”,’ said Pereira. ‘With this energy and mentality, I don’t need him. I’d prefer to play another player.’
Isak turned provider to cap yet another man-of-the-match display, supplying the pass for Gordon to hook in from close range in the 74th minute. He left to standing ovation soon after, but it was Howe’s name ringing out on full-time.
King Kev is still adored in these parts, but the succession plan is in place. Bring home a trophy and there will be a coronation.