This evening we welcome Pep Guardiola and his Manchester City squad to St. James’ Park. City are having an excellent season and it’s no surprise that they are genuine title contenders given the quality and experience of their squad, and the talent and track record of their manager.

We’ve enjoyed some really exciting matches against City over the years, but we know only the best version of ourselves today will give us the chance to achieve a positive result.

In our last home match, we played Athletic Club in the UEFA Champions League. We knew the importance of the game to our ambition of moving through to the latter stages of the competition, and we started on the front foot as a result. Our early possession was rewarded when Dan Burn gave us a well-deserved lead, and we had chances to add to his goal during the rest of the half, without doing so.

Our challenge was to continue the momentum and intensity after the break, and we did exactly that. Just a few minutes into the second half, Joelinton gave us some breathing space when he doubled our lead. We also know that any team is still vulnerable with a two-goal advantage, and the players deserve huge credit for the way in which we managed the remainder of the game, protected our lead, and earned another win in Europe.

A few days later we travelled down to London to face Brentford. Again, we started well, and in a close-fought first half, we took the lead through Harvey Barnes and headed into the half time break ahead. As we expected, Brentford started the second half well and found a way back into the game soon after the re-start. Dan Burn’s red card was a big blow and a turning point as we conceded again soon after. In the end, while I couldn’t fault the players work ethic, we didn’t get the result or points that we felt our efforts deserved.

With many of the squad then joining up with their respective countries for the final international break of 2025, we took the opportunity to work hard with the players that remained and we looked ahead to the challenge of facing City today. Our focus over that period has been clear; to take our excellent form in both the Champions League where we sit in sixth place, and the Carabao Cup, where we have reached the quarter finals, and bring it into our league campaign.

Today is our next opportunity to achieve this, and one we are all very determined to take. To do that, we’ll need every single Newcastle fan in the stadium with us, and one of those special nights under the lights at St. James’ Park. Your support throughout this season – in our good moments and more challenging ones – has already made a huge difference to the players and continues to mean so much. Please stay with us, and we will give everything we have in return.

Eddie Howe