Newcastle super sub Barnes’ dazzling strike sends stumbling Wolves to the brink | Premier League

With a civil war raging in the background, it seems to suit Newcastle well. Despite all the tension between manager Eddie Howe and sporting director Paul Mitchell, they have won three of their first four games of the season and drawn one, which puts them level with Arsenal in second place – who, given the poor state of play at Manchester City, may well end up in first place.

It wasn’t a perfect performance from Newcastle, far from it. Many of their team’s limitations were apparent, but Eddie Howe took decisive action with a triple substitution at half-time and got his reward when one of the players he brought on, Harvey Barnes, scored a brilliant winner, cutting in from the left and hammering a 25-yard drive inside the far post.

Wolves are feeling increasingly anxious. They have won just one of their last 14 Premier League games, taken just six points from their last 42 available matches and while the fixture list at the start of the season has not been kind, one point from four games and, more particularly, the way they have played, is enough to suggest that this could be a difficult season. There have been enough promising signs on the counter-attack to suggest that they should survive, but as many teams have discovered, once they have hit a slump, a rut is not easy to break.

It was a bleak, grey afternoon, which matched the general mood. The brutalist School of Art towered out of the darkness above the Sir Jack Hayward Stand, a dire warning of past utopias. It dominated the Wolverhampton skyline in a way that Jørgen Strand Larsen has yet to do.

Larsen is much taller than his extreme height, however, and he played a key role in Wolves’ opening match, which came as a double surprise in that it was the home side who took the lead, and in the quality of the movement. It began with Sean Longstaff’s pass being intercepted, and as Wolves broke, Larsen held off Dan Burn before slotting home low. João Gomes stepped over it, wrong-footing Newcastle’s retreating defence and setting up Mario Lemina with a simple finish.

Newcastle had looked livelier against a visibly shaky Wolves defence. They may not have conceded six as they did against Chelsea in their last home game, but their problems have not been solved; they have now conceded 11 goals in four games. A simple through ball from Alexander Isak was enough to let Jacob Murphy off the mark early on, but Sam Johnstone, on his home debut, chipped over, leaving Anthony Gordon to stagger down the left past the inexplicably docile Nelson Semedo and Yerson Mosquera and curl his shot against the far post.

Gordon had impressed for England during the international break and had another dangerous game, but the concern before the break was that he was responsible for the vast majority of Newcastle’s attacking spark. Isak has not been at his best this season, while the right wing was an area Newcastle tried, without success, to strengthen in the summer. Barnes looked dangerous coming off the bench, but like Gordon, he prefers the left.

Eddie Howe’s solution, perhaps partly conditioned by a slap in the face Isak received just before half-time, was to make a triple substitution at the break, with Barnes replacing Isak and Gordon moving into the centre. Joelinton, booked for a frustrated foul towards the end of the first half, and Longstaff were also withdrawn, with Sandro Tonali and Joe Willock coming on.

The pattern remained the same as in the first half, however: Newcastle with the ball and Wolves with the threat. Larsen hit the post eight minutes into the break when he followed through on a well-weighted pass from Lemina.

Matheus Cunha also hit the post after getting behind Lewis Hall. As usual in football, there was immediate suspicion that Wolves would pay the price for not taking their chances.

Sure enough, with fifteen minutes to go, Fabian Schär’s speculative shot slid past Craig Dawson and over Johnstone’s dive to equalise. But if that was luck, the winning goal five minutes later was exceptional. And so was Nick Pope’s right-handed stoppage-time save to keep out Cunha’s acrobatic volley.

Howe’s job now is to see if there is a way for Gordon and Barnes to play alongside Isak. But for now, after the anticlimax of last season, the relative lack of action in the transfer market and the background rumblings, 10 points from four games is an extremely positive start.