Eddie Howe, who prides his team on being robust and tough to beat at all times, will no doubt furious with the manner in which Spurs were able to score two goals from just two attempts on target last night.
Cristian Romero’s second, a slow bicycle kick that somehow went past the entire defence and bundled past Aaron Ramsdale in the 95th-minute, was an awful goal to concede, but it
Speaking after the match, Howe discussed our latest failure to see out a lead at St James’ Park after a reporter revealed we have now dropped 11 points from winning positions this season; a Premier League high and not the first time we’ve let things slip in stoppage time.
Discussing this worrying trend, what’s going wrong and how we can put things right, the boss said:
“It’s a real strange one. Sometimes these things go in cycles and happen and you can’t quite work them out, a bit like our away form. This is another one.
“We’ve historically been very good at seeing games out, navigating tough situations, managing the game. We’ve got to try and re-find that quickly because it’s costing us important points.”
“I think you can look back at each moment and identify a mistake or a part of the team not doing its job. So the job for us is to obviously coach the team to be better in those situations and that’s what we’ll endeavour to do.”
“But sometimes it becomes phycological or about the fear of conceding, and then you do concede. There is so much that goes into it. But we have to find ways when we are in front to be better.
“Usually the best form of defence is to attack. I encourage us to do that all the time. But sometimes you have to accept that you’re not in that position in the game to do it (attack) and you have to see it out defend better. Today was one of those moments, but we didn’t do it.”
Of course, we saw Liverpool win it at the death in a 3-2 defeat earlier this season and Gabriel win it for Arsenal in stoppage time despite us being 1-0 up with just over 10 minutes to go.
It’s a concern and Howe has hinted that it may be a slight psychological issue, even if the nature of last night’s second goal was unacceptable on so many levels.
Discussing Romero’s second, the boss was critical of our inability to clear the ball, react quick enough or block the shot, feeling we were both from set pieces in both boxes on the night:
“We didn’t get a good contact on the first ball in, didn’t clear the danger and allowed Romero to an overhead kick in the box, which from that distance shouldn’t go in.
“We’re looking for someone to block it, but that didn’t happen, and it’s almost gone (in) in slow motion.”
“Conceding the two goals in the manner we did is really frustrating. We pride ourselves on being better than that.
“I don’t think we were particularly good on set plays in either box. A far cry from the set piece dominance we enjoyed in the win over Everton.”
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