WATCH: What Eddie Howe said after Newcastle 1-3 Man City

Harvey Barnes’ opener gave us the perfect start, but we were simply no match for Man City control of the game and immense squad depth, as Savinho and Omar Marmoush’s brace gave the visitors a 3-1 win.

Attention now turns to next week’s huge first leg of our Champions League tie against Barcelona, though Howe and the lads may need to devote everything to the Premier League to try and salvage our chances of European football for next season.

Here’s what the gaffer had to say after the game, both in his TNT Sports interview and post match press conference.

Saturday’s game was almost a carbon copy of the same displays we’ve seen against Man City in the four previous meetings from this campaign. Enjoy a good spell of possession and dominance as we push for a goal, but ultimately fall short against the best footballing side in the country as they beat us in almost every metric.

It’s a humbling experience, and Howe recognises that we make City’s life a lot easier than what it needs to be by giving away basic balls and committing basic errors. But the boss is wanting to focus on our excellent opening half hour and will now definitely what we can do to other teams to match that

“Really good start for us. For the first half an hour I thought we were really good. And then I thought we found it difficult. I thought they played very well, and we found it difficult to get enough of the ball to build any rhythm or creativity into our game.

“I have to say, I thought we made some mistakes in sort of contributing to that. But they’re so difficult to play against: they keep the ball so well that you end up chasing the ball for long period of time and you start to lose your energy. So I think a mixture of their qualities and maybe some mistakes from us contributed to that.

“We were chasing to try and add to our lead. But I think we ended up becoming a little bit loose with the ball after we scored. We were very good with ball early on in the game and that contributed to us having some control. We ended up turning the ball over far too easily, maybe played a little too vertical and not horizontal enough.

“I have to say the crowd were magnificent today. They didn’t have a lot to shout about after that initial period in the first half. They stayed with us, they were cheering us in the end. We’re gonna need them for Tuesday.”

Nick Woltemade was a surprise inclusion in the starting XI today, particularly after his past struggles against the Man City midfield in the league fixture last month.

And unfortunately the big German looked out of place in the midfield once again, but Howe revealed his inclusion was more of a necessity than an option, and still believes he can flourish in this deeper role beyond beyond a striker.

“I think it was difficult for any of our midfielders today, because they (Man City) keep the ball so well. They do what they do brilliant, and I think that’s a difficult game for Nick when we’re not in possession of the ball. His best qualities are going to be shown when we have the ball.

“We had three fit and available players to play in there today: Joelinton we didn’t want to start as we felt he was too big an injury risk today, so we’re running out of options in there.

“I thought he (Woltemade) did a good job for the team, I’ve got no issue with his attitude, he’s just come off the back of quite a bad illness so to get through the minutes he did I was quite pleased with him.”

In his pre-match press conference on Friday, Howe revealed that Tino was simply “getting there” in regards to match fitness, so it was a big surprise to see the defender make the squad for the first time since January.

And though he only came on for a short while at the end of the game, he immediately got to work against Antoine Semenyo, and Howe was very pleased with what he saw from one of his top stars.

“He’s huge (in importance). We’ve really missed him, his versatility, his athleticism. He’s a massive player for us and great to have him back.

“Some valuable minutes, he hasn’t done a lot of training so we needed to protect him today.

Meanwhile, Howe also revealed just why neither Anthony Gordon and Jacob Murphy started Saturday’s game.

“I couldn’t use Jacob Murphy today because of a neck problem which he suffered yesterday (Friday), we were really stretched today.

“I don’t think we’ve got the strength at the moment to make loads of changes and keep the same strength in our performance. We tried to do it today with a couple of key performers we had to protect, like Anthony Gordon’s come in with an ankle problem, we had to protect him today. We had to protect Joelinton today.”

Now we’re out of both domestic cups, we’re down to as little as 11 games in all competitions for the rest of the campaign. And despite us being in such a precarious position in the league in terms of not qualifying for Europe, Howe hints that the Champions League is now his main focus for the foreseeable future.

“Tuesday is now really our season. It’s in the hands of the next two games in the Champions League.

“We’ve never been in this position in the Champions League before, and it’s the best competition there is.

“So, for obvious reasons, I think it’s a massive game in our history. We need to approach it that way. We need the supporters to think that way.”