Howe finally beats Guardiola – how Newcastle stopped Man City

Still, something had to change.

Before this game, only Wolves and Leeds United had scored fewer goals than Newcastle in the top flight.

Record signing Nick Woltemade had cut an isolated figure who provided little, especially away from home.

Although Woltemade was not in Germany during the international break, Newcastle worked on the different movements of the players around the forwards, such as Barnes and Jacob Murphy, to bring out the best in him when he returned.

Newcastle certainly created chances on Saturday for Woltemade, who was blocked three times by Manchester City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.

But while Newcastle were once overly dependent on Woltemade, others are starting to step in.

At least Barnes.

The striker was guilty of several big misses in the first half, even missing the target leaving the goal open and saying at half-time that he was not “the most popular man”.

But Barnes not only opened the scoring in the second half with a fine effort from the edge of the penalty area, he also went ahead with the winner moments later after Manchester City’s Ruben Dias equalised.

Newcastle had previously only lost against Arsenal, Brentford and West Ham.

But they did not fall apart when Manchester City drew or eight minutes of stoppage time were added.

This was an evening in which Newcastle won more tackles and aerial duels and made more blocks than the visitors.

Despite Manchester City’s dominance of the ball, which naturally skews the figure, Newcastle stood up and had almost twice as many shots (36) and limited the visitors to just four shots on target.

This defensive effort did not go unnoticed by former Newcastle defender Jonathan Woodgate.

“They were at their best when they didn’t have the ball and when City tried to find the little spaces between the lines they made it very difficult,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“I thought they were the better team in the second half, I kept catching City in transition and eventually got two great goals from Barnes. What a great game of football.”