NEWCASTLE UNITED aspire to challenge for honours in the near future, yet the improvement required was underlined during Saturday’s reality check.

Jonjo Shelvey shuffling along, unable to keep up as Diogo Joto dribbled away into Newcastle territory soon after half-time, was a moment symbolic of the gulf between these teams.

The sluggish midfielder could only watch as the Liverpool forward darted past in one of numerous Liverpool attacks.

Only one produced a goal, the 1-0 scoreline suggesting a closer contest than the comfortable afternoon on Tyneside that Liverpool enjoyed.

Wasteful finishing and Martin Dubravka saves prevented a bigger winning margin for a side that changed half of their outfield players from the team which defeated Villarreal in midweek and have tomorrow evening’s Champions League semi-final second leg to prepare for.

In-form Newcastle had had a free midweek, and put together a good run of results recently, going for a seventh successive home win on Saturday.

Yet this was a salient reminder that Eddie Howe’s side, despite their improvement and spending £83m in January, are a long way off competing with the very best.

Howe acknowledged as much, saying: “There’s been progress, we’ve improved in a lot of aspects in our play. But today has shown there’s a gap that we have to bridge to the top teams.

“I’m not surprised by that, I don’t think anyone else is, that we have work to do.

“The biggest disappointment was individually we did not excel. The team was okay, we were in the game right until the end, but to win these games you need six or seven performers to be right at their top level and that wasn’t there.

“There were one or two bright sparks, but it’s slightly disappointing compared to our previous levels. I’ve seen progress from where we have been, but, on the other side, there’s a lot of work to do.”

Despite tremendous backing from the bulk of a sold-out St James’, from an early stage Newcastle were second best with Liverpool asserting themselves and opening the scoring on 19 minutes through Naby Keita.

After James Milner dispossessed Fabian Schar in Newcastle’s half, Keita and Jota played a one-two before Keita dribbled around Dubravka to slot home.

Sadio Mane wasted a chance for 2-0, shooting straight at Dubravka, before Allan Saint-Maximin dragged well wide a 20-yard shot. It was a dismal effort that summed up his contribution: all promise and no end product.

He was not alone in making minimal impact. Bruno Guimaraes’ influence was limited, while Miguel Almiron and Joe Willock were passengers.

Dubravka was Newcastle’s star man, the goalkeeper’s save keeping out Jota’s powerful header after a Joe Gomez cross.

Mane missed another chance early in a second half that saw Liverpool take increasing control, with the quality and depth of their squad highlighted when Mohamed Salah and Fabinho were used as substitutes. By contrast, Howe sent on Chris Wood and Jacob Murphy.

Howe has done well to steer Newcastle away from trouble and there’s no shame in losing to Liverpool.

“Winning here is special,” admitted Klopp. “We played two-and-a-half days ago and coming here, against a team in form, with six home wins on the bounce, great weather and everybody in good mood, everything is prepared for another home win.

“The only group who wanted to avoid that was my players. It’s the most difficult of circumstances.

“Coming here with five changes and building pretty much a new set-up is really difficult, so the performance was absolutely outstanding. I loved it.

“You want to win football games and in the best case you deserve to win and we did today 100 per cent against a team in great form in a great atmosphere.”