Wolves 1-2 Newcastle

&c

Newcastle's completely serene start to the season* continued at Molineux on Sunday afternoon, the annual 1-1 draw here being upgraded to a 2-1 comeback win courtesy of two long range screamers in a week when a BBC article about the decline of long range screamers was doing the rounds.

This game didn't quite follow the pattern of the previous three, Newcastle having the upper hand over a Wolves side battered 2-6 by Chelsea in their last home game.

However, a promising start yielded few real chances and the game started to even out.

There was a familiar sense of inevitability in the Wolves opener, popular fan whipping boy Longstaff sloppily losing possession on the edge of the Wolves box followed by a complete lack of defensive organisation leading to a tap in a few seconds later.

If that felt familiar, then a half time triple substitution felt almost nuclear from Howe (Isak being forced off with a facial injury), and coming from behind to win away will never feel normal to this Newcastle fan.

Looking better with Tonali and Barnes on and guided by Trippier's experience, we still didn't create too much in the way of chances.

Step forward Fabian Schar (RIP Ben), who never needs an invitation to have a go from distance.

This time his effort took a deflection of a defender to lift it out of range of the keeper, but a good hit nonetheless.

Not to be outdone, Harvey Barnes then cut inside and curled a smashing effort into the far corner (he might be onto something with that).

The case for Barnes starting is surely getting hard to ignore, the only question being do we lose too much from Gordon by playing him on the right? The rest of the game was played out with only mild panic, with the weekend closing with Newcastle in third place behind Man City and Arsenal, with a points tally not seen around these parts after four games since the heady days of The Entertainers.

* Notwithstanding disjointed performances, "civil war", permanently-imminent training ground and stadium plans, repeated stories about Gordon and Trippier being unsettled, Eddie's baffling aversion to starting Tonali, and the fact that none of our starting midfield trio have yet to get going this season.