Harvey Barnes seals comeback win for Newcastle to silence Eddie Howe critics

ST JAMES’ PARK – This was something very special at St James’ Park – a comeback as sensational as it was significant for Newcastle United and Eddie Howe.

Season-defining? How about career-defining for Howe, who saw his team offer an emphatic response to critics who had accused them of being on the beach already. Newcastle’s campaign is back from the brink and creeping questions about his future at St James’ Park – never entertained in the corridors of power, for what’s it worth – can surely be banished now.

Instead it is David Moyes’ turn to absorb the pressure this week, not least for sending on the unfortunate Kalvin Phillips to execute another disaster class in the final 20 minutes. His introduction turned the game, conceding a penalty and with it all the momentum that the Hammers had built.

Yet how do you craft a sober analysis from such an intoxicating game? This was 110 minutes of unmitigated midday madness – two substitutes subbed, two apopletic managers booked, a pair of VAR penalties, a red card, seven goals and a Harvey Barnes cameo that might rate as one of the most emphatic substitute appearances of this or any Premier League season.

Barnes was brilliant – his second and winning goal absolutely sensational – but it was typical of this crazy contest that his 67th minute introduction was almost by chance. He was summoned to replace Miguel Almiron – himself a substitute – after the winger succumbed to a serious-looking knee injury.

At that point it felt as Newcastle’s season was coming apart at the seams. Howe had already seen three players hobble off and when Almiron grimaced and wearily sat on the turf to indicate he couldn’t continue, Howe puffed out his cheeks and looked like a haunted man.

But Barnes, who has barely played this season because of a foot injury, chose the perfect time to remind everyone why his capture by Newcastle last summer was regarded as such a coup. He was a signing Howe pushed hard for, a player he saw almost as the final piece of the jigsaw for a team crafted with his “intensity is our identity” mantra in mind.

Of course it hasn’t worked out that way. Barnes’ injury is just one of many in a season that has been ravaged by fitness issues. So many big hitters are missing – Nick Pope, Callum Wilson, Sven Botman and Kieran Trippier all absent here – but there seems to be no let-up.

The game was only 17 minutes old when Jamaal Lascelles suffered a knee injury, disrupting Newcastle again. He was offered a stretcher but, somewhat unwisely, opted to play on. He lasted just a few minutes – during which he could barely walk – before succumbing. By then Newcastle were one up – the excellent Anthony Gordon winning a penalty that was converted by Alexander Isak – but their authority was shaken by the reorganisation.

West Ham sprinted into the lead – Michail Antonio and Mohammed Kudus scoring goals that owed much to Martin Dubravka’s hesitancy – and then extended the lead through Jarrod Bowen. Again, Newcastle were wide open. Again you feared for them.

But the comeback was stirring and proof of a team not prepared to give an inch. Gordon was again pivotal, winning a penalty thanks to Phillips’ clumsiness. Then Barnes scored two superb goals to hand Newcastle a victory that feels bigger than just three points.

A win against Everton now is a must but Howe must wonder what players he has to pick from. Gordon will serve a one-match suspension for a late red card for kicking the ball away while Tino Livramento hobbled out of the stadium awkwardly. He, surely, will not play against the Toffees. Battered and bruised, they are somehow finding a way.