· December 1 2024, 13:00
**It should have been a sign of things to come for Newcastle United when Eddie Howe was forced to bring off Alexander Isak after just 22 minutes in the game against Crystal Palace on Saturday.**
The opening 20 minutes of the game at Selhurst Park saw Newcastle's players spending a lot of time rolling around on the floor although it wasn't a particularly physical game.
However, Alexander Isak took a knock and tried to play on before giving up a couple of minutes later and the £63 million man had to be removed from the game.
For once, though, Eddie Howe had options with both Callum Wilson and Will Osula on the bench. Instead, though, Howe replaced our sole striker with another winger and moved Anthony Gordon up front.
Eddie Howe replaced our lone striker with a winger when he had two strikers on the bench
Eddie Howe didn't want to risk Callum Wilson for too many minutes
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It was a move that baffled fans given that we actually had two perfect replacements on the bench but Howe has tried to justify his decision to The Chronicle.
> “It was a difficult one for Callum today. Obviously, he has minimal training time and I have to be really, really careful I don’t push him and lose him. So I didn’t feel bringing him on at that stage with the minutes we had left of the game was something I could do. The plan pre-game was 20 to 30 minutes as it was against West Ham.
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> “So I decided to put Anthony up there who has done a really good job when he’s gone up there for us previously and I thought he did well today. The lack of goalscoring opportunities is not on him. It’s on the team and we need to do better.”
Will Osula is going to be incredible next season
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We can understand the reluctance to bring on Callum Wilson with so much of the game left to play given that it was only his second game back from a long layoff, but what has poor Will Osula got to do to get a shot?
Howe could even have used Osula and swapped him for Wilson with 20 minutes to go as was the plan. Just give the lad a crack.
It turns out that Harvey Barnes, who replaced Isak, was our most dangerous player, although that was a low bar to clear, but the decision at the time was infuriating.
We can only imagine how good Osula is going to be next season as he appears to be getting the Lewis Hall treatment right now.