WHAT a way to end 2024. In many ways, this has been a challenging 12 months for Newcastle United, with the financial constraints imposed by PSR preventing them from growing in the way their Saudi Arabian owners would perhaps have envisaged.

But the year ends with the Magpies back in the top five – a position that would potentially be good enough for a place in the Champions League if it was maintained to the end of the season – and basking in the glow of five successive wins in all competitions. Oh, and with the small matter of a resounding victory at Old Trafford to celebrate too.

Manchester United are hardly the side they were once were, but the ease with which Newcastle repeatedly ripped them apart in the first half of last night’s game was still hard to fathom. Was this really the Magpies’ ‘Theatre of Nightmares’, scene of so many bad days in the past?

It didn’t look that way for much of the opening 45 minutes as Newcastle scored twice, through Alexander Isak and Joelinton, hit the post through Sandro Tonali and spurned at least four other excellent opportunities to extend their advantage.

Manchester United rallied after the interval, with Harry Maguire also hitting the woodwork, but unlike on a number of previous occasions where Newcastle saw promising positions disintegrate in the closing stages of a game at Old Trafford, this time there were no late scares.

Isak raised his fist in celebration, Joelinton embraced Bruno Guimaraes, Eddie Howe saluted the euphoric travelling support. So much for a hoodoo at the home of Manchester United.

Sometimes, records are there to be broken. Newcastle travelled to Old Trafford having won just one of their last 39 league games at the venue, but rarely, if ever, had they found themselves lining up against a Manchester United team in such a bedraggled state. Recalling Marcus Rashford to the squad after such a public exile felt like an act of desperation from Ruben Amorim, but even then, the Portuguese boss only felt able to name the England international on the bench.

Newcastle, on the other hand, were unchanged and unhindered by more than 50 years of Mancunian hurt. Upwardly mobile after their league wins over Leicester, Ipswich and Aston Villa, Eddie Howe’s players strode onto the Old Trafford turf brimming with belief.

Could they transfer that belief onto the pitch? For the third league game in a row, the answer arrived inside the opening four minutes. Guimaraes’ arrow-like cross-field pass found Lewis Hall in acres of space on the left, enabling the full-back to deliver a cross into the middle. Isak peeled off Maguire, and was left with the simple task of heading home from the edge of the six-yard box. It was Isak’s 11th goal in his last 11 league games, and arguably the easiest he will score all season.

It was also the first in a series of first-half attacking moves that saw Newcastle pierce Manchester United’s shambolic backline seemingly at will. Defensively, the hosts were awful, every bit as bad as Ipswich had been when Newcastle ripped them apart at Portman Road before Christmas. Even so, though, with Guimaraes and Tonali pulling the strings from the heart of midfield, there was still so much to admire in Newcastle’s vibrant, inventive attacking.

Joelinton shot wide after Anthony Gordon’s cross was deflected into his path in the 18-yard box. Gordon volleyed wide at the back post after Jacob Murphy fired over a cross from the right. Isak wasted a great opportunity to double his personal tally when he miscued an attempted chip over Andre Onana after Guimaraes’ long ball sent him scampering into the right of the penalty area. And all of that came in the 15 minutes that followed the Magpies opener.

Manchester United were unravelling in a truly remarkable fashion, and Newcastle claimed the second goal their dominance more than merited in the 19th minute.

Gordon was able to run at Noussair Mazraoui down the left-hand side, with his superior pace enabling him to skip past the Manchester United wing-back. The England international crossed into the middle, and having powered ahead of a flat-footed Lisandro Martinez, Joelinton thumped a header into the net.

Two goals to the good, and still the chances continued to flow. Hall fired a long-range shot straight at Onana. Tonali saw a low driven effort deflect just wide off a defender. Isak fired home from an offside position. Tonali hit the post with a prodded strike after Gordon laid the ball into his path.

The size of the gulf separating the two sides was incredible, and while Manchester United finally fashioned an opportunity of their own towards the end of the first half, with Rasmus Hojlund clipping a shot wide of the far post after breaking into the left of the box, the sight of Amorim turning to his substitutes’ bench before the interval, with Kobbie Mainoo replacing the hapless Joshua Zirkzee, highlighted the extent of Newcastle’s dominance.

That said though, the Magpies almost ushered their opponents back into the game on the stroke of half-time. Fabian Schar needlessly gave the ball away on the edge of his own box, but while Mainoo set up Casemiro, the Brazilian swept a shot wide of the target when he should really have scored.

If not quite turning, then the tide of the game was no longer exclusively in Newcastle’s favour, and with the Old Trafford crowd trying to spur on their team, Manchester United became more of a threat in the second half.

They almost equalised on the hour mark, with Harry Maguire flashing a diving header against the base of the post, but Newcastle contained their late flurries with impressively little cause for concern.