Newcastle’s sixth consecutive Premier League victory – and ninth in all competitions – has lifted Eddie Howe’s resurgent side into fourth place. Alexander Isak demonstrated precisely why his manager believes he is currently as good as any striker in the world.
Isak’s 16th and 17th goals in an extraordinary season pushed Wolves into the relegation zone, pushing them below fourth bottom Ipswich on goal difference.
Guest coach Vitor Pereira has managed nine clubs in seven countries since leaving Porto in 2013, but all that vast and eclectic experience has failed to help Wolves’ new(ish) Portuguese coach spot a streak deadly in Howe’s suddenly unstoppable and seemingly unstoppable team. .
Pereira had told his Wolves players that Newcastle were “not supermen” and, apparently taking that into account, the visitors certainly started undaunted.
Although José Sá had to make a decent diving save to deflect Jacob Murphy’s low, curling shot, Gonçalo Guedes should have done better than shooting narrowly wide from around eight yards after Sven Botman had deflected the cross from Hwang Hee-chan on his way.
In the 30th minute, Sá had, once again, intelligently saved Murphy following Rayan Aït-Nouri’s expert dodging by the right winger and Isak had brushed the outside of a post after taking the cross pass from the defense of Bruno Guimarães. As the minutes ticked by, Pereira and his team became increasingly furious with some of Darren England’s officiating and looked in danger of implosion when Dan Burn escaped unpunished after felling Guedes. They then argued that a penalty should have been awarded when Guedes collapsed under Isak’s challenge and their mood was little improved when, in the 34th minute, Fortune disapproved of Wolves’ defence.
Isak’s 16th goal of the season was the result of a heavy deflection from Emmanuel Agbadou who redirected an initially very speculative shot from the edge of the area beyond a counter-footed Sá. It means the Swedish striker joins an elite group of strikers – Jamie Vardy, Ruud van Nistelroy and Daniel Sturridge are the other three – to have scored in eight successive Premier League matches.
Although this signaled some impressive attacking cameos from Newcastle – who could have doubled their lead had Sandro Tonali not seen a fine strike deflected off target – Wolves remained a threat on the counter-attack.
At the end of one of these breaks, Jørgen Strand Larsen met Rodrigo Gomes’ cross before seeing his shot graze the post. Lewis Hall has shone at left-back for Howe’s side in recent weeks, but he won’t enjoy seeing Gomes’ replays pass him by.
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Pereira introduced Matheus Cunha early in the second half and a freshly suspended striker looked keen to make up for lost time. Yet despite Cunha, whose nifty touch and insidious movement suggested he probably should have started, quickly earning a save from Martin Dubravka then going close with another decent chance, only Santiago Bueno’s block got in the way cross the path between Anthony Gordon and a second Newcastle goal.
However, no one could stop Isak from scoring his second goal of the evening. This involved another outstanding defensive pass from Guimarães and a flawless pivot from the Swede before the ball flew past Sá.
Then Isak showed his unselfish side, his cross allowing Gordon’s first-time strike to finally remove any remaining swagger from Wolves’ approach once it had survived a VAR review for offside. To underline that it was not the visitors’ night, Bueno slotted a late ‘goal’ beyond Dubravka following a corner disallowed for handball following another VAR review.
Most of them were more concerned about Newcastle’s ability to make it a perfect 10 straight wins when they travel to Bournemouth on Tyneside on Saturday.
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