It continues to be a strange season for Newcastle United. Eddie Howe’s side just about managed to get over the line in the FA Cup on Tuesday night thanks to a dramatic penalty shootout win away at Blackburn Rovers in which Martin Dubravka stepped up. Newcastle are now into the quarter-finals and are just one game away from a potential return to Wembley. That should be a good thing and, broadly, it is. Still, the manner of the performance was hardly convincing. Indeed, this was a team who towards the back end of 2023 beat Paris Saint-Germain, both Manchester clubs, Arsenal and Chelsea. In 2024,…
