1 good, 3 bad from Newcastle's final day disaster at Fulham

Newcastle United lost to Fulham 2-0 on the final day of the 2025/26 Premier League season, managing to serve up the quintessential “on the beach” performance in the process. 

It was an appalling showing from the lads, with hardly an effort on goal to speak of and barely any coherent attacking play, full stop.

And when your stalwart captain basically sacks the game off after an hour (with Brazil in mind?), you know you are watching the final disappointment of a deeply frustrating campaign.

Here’s my one good and three bad from Sunday's game:

Good: This terrible season is FINALLY over!

In a season that has felt like it has lasted about ten years at times, we can finally wave goodbye to a hugely disappointing campaign and hope to see some progress off the pitch over the next three months or so.

17 league defeats means Howe has equalled the worst Steve Bruce was able to serve up as United manager, and he’d rightly be receiving pelters. So I think it’s only fair that the current incumbent receives the same, and (I can’t believe I’m writing this) Bruce wasn't working with anywhere near the calibre of player Howe is.

There are many questions to answer this offseason, and I know I’m not alone in wondering whether our newly built executive team are up to the task, but we need to see some real development in this squad. The technical level needs to be raised, and some of the athletes in the side need to be moved on and replaced with intelligent footballers who possess good first touches and the ability to work in tight spaces.

Bad: Unnecessary changes

Apparently, the few positives we saw in last week’s win over West Ham were too good for some, with Howe making, to my mind, wholly unnecessary changes to the starting eleven.

The switch to five at the back was mind-boggling considering what we saw last weekend. And it certainly lends credence to the rumour that Trippier was due a payday if he met a certain threshold of appearances, with Jacob Murphy being completely ineffective at RWB (as he has often been, as it’s simply not his position).

Howe’s constant desire to shoehorn Dan Burn into any formation shows no sign of abating, and whilst he wasn’t terrible, the lad from Blyth is/has become the poster child for one of the manager's perceived biggest flaws.

Harvey Barnes was terrible when he was finally introduced, but he again found himself out of the side to accommodate a formation that we’ve barely managed to use effectively (still only one win) in Howe’s time at the club. When his numbers for goals and assists rival anyone in the side this season (22 goal involvements), it was another odd call. 

Bad: Not good enough...once again 

You may laugh and say “he’s picked out individuals above”, but the entire team and staff let the fans down on Sunday, despite the fixture being mainly meaningless in the context of the season.

What isn’t meaningless, however, is that whatever tiny green shoots of recovery were sown by the mini three-game unbeaten run before this fixture have been well and truly deadheaded.

Instead, we get to go into the long summer on the back of a pathetic display that we’ve seen many times across this season. Honestly, there was no difference between this non-performance and the ones we’ve seen against Sunderland (twice), Brentford (twice), Brighton, Everton, Man Utd et al. All performances that are wholly unbecoming of a side supposedly wanting to be one of the elites.

And to top it all off, the Mackems snuck into European football too, despite having an xG that would’ve seen them relegated most seasons…

Bad: So much is up in the air

To compound all the above, we also simply have no idea what the side will look like come August. There’s so much up in the air: players leaving with Gordon, Tonali and Tino heavily linked with moves away. Trippier, Ramsdale, Krafth and other youngsters certainly being away, and even Lewis Hall was linked with a move to Man Utd on Saturday past.

There are huge questions around Pope and Woltemade, for completely different reasons of course, and there are concerns after last summer’s appalling transfer business about the man at the helm and how he will spend yet more cash this summer.

Going the other way, unlikely transfer rumours around players coming in, like Victor Munoz at Osasuna, who has been linked with Barcelona and Real Madrid! So, why on Earth would he come here? Whilst Jaidon Anthony and Marcus Tavernier certainly don’t get the juices flowing either and do, unfortunately, stink of Howe-style signings. That said, I wholly disagree that he won’t sign players from the continent, as we have plenty in the side who disprove that.

And with no European football, the likes of Villa, Sunderland, Brighton and Bournemouth may be more attractive propositions for certain players and that’s a deeply disappointing position to be in, especially when the quality of the league has generally been so poor this season that even holding on to just five of our twenty-seven points dropped from winning positions would’ve seen us in the Conference League, whilst six would’ve seen us in the Europa…

So, good riddance to 2025/26, you will not live long in the memory.

Keep the faith. HWTL