PRIOR to the weekend, Newcastle United had passed lots of different tests this season. They had sliced opposition teams apart with their incisive attacking, as was the case at West Ham last week, and had showcased their defensive mettle by squeezing the life out of their opponents, as evidenced by the run of clean sheets that was such a key part of their play in the autumn.

What they had not done, however, was prove they could respond to adversity and turn around a performance that was in danger of flatlining. How would Eddie Howe and his players react to being out of sorts and behind? Would they be able to flick a switch to turn a bad performance into a brilliant one?

The answer arrived in emphatic fashion at Brentford on Saturday. Deservedly trailing at half-time – in fact, if anything, fortunate to only be one goal behind – Newcastle were in danger of tumbling out of the top four.

Something needed to change, and it did. Howe made a decisive double substitution at the half-time interval – bringing on Callum Wilson and Anthony Gordon, and switching to a 4-2-3-1 formation that released Alexander Isak into a ‘number ten’ role – and his players were immediately transformed as they scored two goals in ten minutes to turn the game on its head and establish a position of dominance that could have been even more emphatic come the full-time whistle.

Good teams fight a way to succeed even when things are going against them. Even the doubters must surely now concede this is a good Newcastle team – if they maintain their current rate of progress over the next few years, and potentially increase their spending in the next two or three transfer windows – it might not take too much to transform it into a great one.

“You need all different types of ways to win, and I think this was a huge moment in the season,” said a justifiably jubilant Howe. “You’re 1-0 down at half-time, at a really tough ground, and we hadn’t been in that position many times this season. So, the challenge to the players was, ‘Can we come back? Have we got the strength of character and the physicality to deliver a huge 45 minutes?’

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“Right from the whistle in that second half, I thought we looked like a totally different team. You can’t do that if your players aren’t completely in tune with what they need to do, and you’re not equipped with some incredible characters. I think they’ve gone very deep in this past week, and that’s a real credit to them.”

There were stars right across the pitch in the second half, from Nick Pope, whose first-half penalty save from Ivan Toney was a key part of Newcastle’s success and whose second-half stop from the same player’s header was every bit as significant, to Isak and Wilson, who dovetailed superbly as Howe finally played then together for a sustained spell.

The Magpies had been all at sea defensively in the first half, with Toney scoring a penalty, missing a spot-kick and also having an early effort narrowly ruled out for offside, but were much more secure in the second period, with Howe’s decision to switch Joelinton into a defensive-midfield position alongside Bruno Guimaraes adding some much-needed ballast to the heart of the Newcastle side.

Joelinton was the key to his side’s leveller, turning inside Ben Mee in the area before sliding in a cross-shot that found the net via a deflection off Brentford goalkeeper David Raya, while the winner was all about Isak’s technical brilliance, with the Swede curling a sensational first-time effort into the top corner after he had been teed up by Wilson.

“It’s a huge test of character passed,” said Howe. “‘Did we have the energy? Did we have the fight in us?’ Because in the first half, it didn’t look as though we did. But it just goes to show how quickly a game of football can change.”