Eddie Howe has been speaking to the media following yesterday’s 4-0 win over Leicester City at St James’ Park.
It was a much-needed victory and dominant display, where a Jacob Murphy brace, another goal for Alexander Isak and Bruno Guimaraes’ first of the season helped us see off the Foxes in style.
The boss described it as a “big win” that gives us a “massive lift” heading into Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup quarter-final at home to Brentford.
Interestingly, Howe also admitted that “there was a lot of pressure on the players” going into the game, with the media questioning our lack of consistency and fan’s frustrated by our second half collapse in that 4-2 defeat at the Gtech last Saturday.
With that in mind, Howe was delighted by their response and our ability to respond to that “pressured moment”, feeling we had “a bit of everything” in our performance, showing quality at both ends of the pitch, athleticism and technical quality.
“I thought there was a lot of pressure on the players today, that wasn’t lost on me. You go from that performance last week, everything was set up for us today to answer a lot of questions and you still have to deliver it against a very dangerous team with a new manager.
“It was a great response in that pressured moment,” Howe added. “Good signs from us mentally because we’ve got to deal with that pressure.
“The first goal is important because we knocked on the door with a number of chances and didn’t take them until two really good set plays. It goes to show the importance of those moments. Really played with the first two goals.”
“It’s a big win for a lot of reasons but this week with two home games and the importance of both games,” Howe said. “We needed to start well and this gives us a massive lift.
“It was important we responded to the Brentford performance in the right way and I thought we did, right from the start of the game I thought we looked engaged and mentally switched on to give a really athletic and technical performance.
“We had a bit of everything today, good attacking and defending and there were a lot of positive responses to the disappointment of last week.
“The result was the most important thing and of course how you get the result is hugely important especially off the back of the recent weeks that we’ve had so to create a lot of chances, to score four goals and keep a clean sheet are all huge things for us.
“It’s been a really good day but we have to make sure we wake up tomorrow and we are absolutely focused on our next game to deliver the same product.”
Hopefully this is not another false dawn and we build on this next week, with two more important games just around the corner against Brentford and Ipswich.