Eddie Howe hammered home two key objectives for Newcastle United on their trip to **Brighton**on Saturday afternoon.
The Toon have drawn 0-0 at Aston Villa, Leeds United, and **Bournemouth**across their three away fixtures and kept five clean sheets in their seven Premier League outings since the start of the season. Even with injuries across the back four, their defensive discipline has been a solid foundation.
If the rearguard remains this stingy, the team will at very least be a competitive outfit. On the other hand, a lack of cutting edge has been costly in performances that should have produced more points.
In the last couple of weeks, Anthony Gordon seems to have found his finishing boots while Nick Woltemade has excelled as the new nine. Howe hopes his offence finally comes together on the road.
“We see that as a sometimes a natural evolution anyway. You don't want to be delivering the same work every season. That means you're not evolving. You're not changing. So, I think this is forcing us to to look at it slightly differently to see if we can find solutions wotj different players.
“And I think that's exciting. I'm excited by what I was seeing about the team at the moment in terms of what we can be in the future. And now we've got to try and work towards that.
"I'm not obsessing over [away form]. I think there's a lot of good in that. And when you go away from home and you're solid and you've got a good defensive structure, that's a really positive thing.
“Of course, we're frustrated that we haven't performed better in front of goal away from home, but I back the players and I back the team and I know we will come good in that respect.”