Newcastle’s February ended on an almighty low as a Nick Pope clanger and more defensive shortcomings saw us fall to a 3-2 defeat against Everton at St James’ Park.
Jarrad Branthwaite’s header gave the visitors a lead, before Jacob Ramsey restored parity with his deflected shot to grab his second of the season. But we were level for less than two minutes, as a long shot from Dwight McNeil was parried by Pope into the path of Beto just before half-time.
Then, just when it looked like Jacob Murphy found a late leveller, Everton scored from Anthony Gordon’s giveaway less than 90 seconds later to make it 3-2, gifting David Moyes’ side all three points.
Speaking to the media moments after the game, a visibly frustrated Eddie Howe discussed out
On an afternoon of football where two other teams conceded at least four goals, the biggest questions about a team’s defending will be aimed at us.
A mixture of fatigue and just underwhelming performances, Howe has expressed his frustration about how we struggled to get into a positive situation at almost any point on Saturday.
“Extremely frustrating. We worked hard to get back into the game. Everton aren’t easy to score against, so chasing it took a lot out of us. Then we undo it with avoidable mistakes. The second one especially hurt us.
“We were dominant. But those lapses cost us. The players are trying, working hard and giving everything.”
“What’s strange is we started the season strong defensively by every metric. Clean sheets, hard to break down — it was all there.
“Then it flipped. It’s been building for a while. Today showed it again. We should have conceded fewer, but we didn’t. We’ve got to get our reliability back. That’s non-negotiable.”
Right from kick-off, fans were quick to notice that striker Woltemade playing in midfield, midfielder Joelinton playing on the wing, and winger Gordon playing up front.
However, there was very little coming off for all three, and you have to question what the game plan was from the manager in those opening 30 minutes. Discussing his set up, Howe said.
“The set-up was done with reason, and with the limited time we had to prepare, we had good logic.
“Then you see the reality of it and we didn’t like (the performance early on) and we changed it.
“You can always look back and reflect, saying would I do that again. That’s the perils of being a manager.”
Howe saying ‘limited time’ here will no doubt draw the ire of many fans, who will rightfully question the choice of a near-full strength side against Qarabag
So often in the past, Nick Pope has kept us in games with top quality saves. But with every passing week, fans have turned on the long-time no.1 goalkeeper, and today may be the tipping point.
Statuesque for Everton’s first and third, and directly at fault for the second, Howe has urged fans to direct their disappointment towards him and not towards Pope or any of the other players.
“It’s difficult for me to comment on any one player or position. Collectively, we’ve got to defend our goal better. That’s everyone across the board.
“That’s me taking responsibility for that first and then, of course, following that down to the players.
“There would be multi-factors behind everything that you see. Multi-factors behind why we conceded today after scoring. In terms of individual errors defensively, it’s always a team thing. It’s always interlinked.
“You can look at the person that makes a mistake, but then you’ve got to go back a bit further than that and go, why has that happened? What’s the reason? Of course, team selection is key for me. That’s my power that I have to make changes.”
For the first time in his tenure as manager, Eddie Howe has lost three consecutive home games in the Premier League, following our previous two defeats against Aston Villa and Brentford.
The games won’t get any easier in March, with the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea and Sunderland all on the fixture list: fans will be scratching their heads as to why we can’t replicate our performances in Europe in the Premier League when it really matters.
“Obviously there’s a big challenge for us to lift ourselves back into the Premier League after the European games. It takes a lot of big physical efforts, whether you’re travelling, whether you’re playing, we haven’t done it well enough especially in the last few games.
“I’ve said this a few times: I don’t think it’s a lack of effort. You can see the players are (going) all out today. There were a few tired bodies on the pitch, but we have to admit to ourselves that we’ve got to do better.
“We know that there’s no break for us. We have to regroup quickly. It (Manchester United on Wednesday) is a massive game.”
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