Newcastle 2-2 Bournemouth: a two-goal lead gone again

Bournemouth went to St James’ Park on Saturday lunchtime, led 2-0 inside thirty-five minutes, and came away with a point. It is the third time in three matches they have been in front this season. They have two points.

Newcastle drew 2-2 and will regard it as a rescue rather than a result. Jacob Ramsey equalised on eighty-eight minutes from a set piece, and the home side finished the afternoon with eight shots — two on target — against seventeen from the visitors.

How Bournemouth got two in front

Marcus Tavernier scored on nine minutes, left-footed from very close range into the top left corner. It was the earliest goal Newcastle have conceded this season and it set a pattern that held for most of the first half.

The second, on thirty-five minutes, was an own goal: Malick Thiaw turned the ball into his own net to make it 0-2. Two goals in a match Newcastle had 57.3% of the ball in, which is the first thing worth noting about the afternoon.

Newcastle had the ball and did nothing with it

This is the reversal of everything Newcastle had done in their opening two matches. They drew 2-2 with Liverpool and won 2-0 at Tottenham, and in the Tottenham game they had 42.5% of the possession and eleven shots and won comfortably. They were a counter-attacking side and they were good at it.

On Saturday they had the majority of the ball for the first time this season and produced eight shots in ninety minutes. Two of them were on target. Bournemouth, with 42.7%, had seventeen attempts and five on target.

Nineteen fouls to Bournemouth’s seventeen made it a scrappy, stop-start afternoon, and neither side found much rhythm. But the shot count is the number that matters: a home side with more of the ball managing eight attempts is not creating, it is circulating.

The two goals that saved it

Harvey Barnes pulled one back on thirty-seven minutes, two minutes after the own goal, with a right-footed finish from the left side of the box into the top right corner. That is worth flagging on its own: every Newcastle goal before Saturday had come after the sixtieth minute, and this one arrived in the first half.

The equaliser took until eighty-eight. Jacob Ramsey finished right-footed from the centre of the box into the bottom right corner following a set piece, and Newcastle had their point.

Bournemouth’s problem is now a pattern

Three matches, three leads, two points. At the Etihad on the opening weekend they went ahead in the twenty-sixth minute and lost 2-1 to goals in the eighty-fourth and ninety-first. At home to Everton they led from the forty-first and conceded in the first minute of stoppage time. Here they led by two after thirty-five minutes and conceded on thirty-seven and eighty-eight.

That is not misfortune repeating itself. A side that has led in every match it has played and taken two points from nine has a specific, identifiable problem, and it is not in the attacking third — seventeen shots on Saturday, seventeen against Everton — but in the last twenty minutes of matches.

They sit fifteenth with two points and a goal difference of minus one, which for a team that has scored four goals and been ahead in three consecutive fixtures is a strange and unhappy place to be.

An own goal, and the shape of the first half

Thiaw’s own goal on thirty-five minutes was the fourth own goal of the season already in this division, after Donnarumma’s at Selhurst Park, João Pedro’s at Stamford Bridge and Jacob Greaves’ at Old Trafford. Two of the four have been scored by the side that went on to win anyway.

For Newcastle it meant a two-goal deficit in a match they had otherwise controlled territorially, and it came at the point in the half where the game had settled. Barnes pulling one back two minutes later was the single most important moment of the afternoon: at 0-2 with fifty-five minutes left, Newcastle were facing a defeat that would have left them ninth.

Where it leaves Newcastle

Fifth to eighth after this round is a five-way tie on five points, and Newcastle are seventh of that group on goal difference. Manchester City and Arsenal are clear on nine, Hull City have seven, Chelsea six.

So a point at home to a side without a win is not, in isolation, damaging. What it does do is interrupt a start that had been built on doing something specific very well, and the manner of it — a majority of possession, eight shots, two on target — suggests Newcastle are less comfortable when opponents invite them to take the game.

That will be tested again soon enough. For now the more urgent story belongs to the visitors, who have played three matches, led in all three, and are two points above the relegation zone.

You can play the rest of the season out on the Premier League simulator on this site, with the real remaining fixtures and the table exactly as it stands after this round.