West Ham 3 Newcastle 1
Removing three players at half-time spoke volumes about his assessment of Newcastle’s performance against West Ham. The identity of those players made it an even more striking decision. Nick Woltemade and Anthony Gordon are his team’s presumed most dangerous attackers and while neither had contributed much in the first 45 minutes, it was still shocking to remove them together.
In the era of five permitted substitutions and nine-strong benches, the impact of the triple change at half-time has been diluted. Jose Mourinho was fond of it in his pomp, when his Chelsea team had failed to suffocate a match sufficiently to his liking. It is still a significant call, especially when used by a manager admired for his calmness.
William Osula and Jacob Ramsey are undeniably talented players but West Ham would have been encouraged if they had started the match, with Woltemade and Gordon sidelined. So Howe had made a point, but weakened his team.
The third change was Fabian Schar on for Emil Krafth, who had looked vulnerable against Crysencio Summerville. A reliable performer on for a team-mate who was not having his best day is no great surprise in isolation, but combined with the eye-catching duo, it was as public a statement of fury as you are ever likely to receive from Howe.
“That’s the worst we’ve played,” he said. “Hugely frustrating for us, that was a poor performance and we weren’t ourselves today. The dynamism wasn’t there today, the physicality, the energy was missing in our performance.”
West Ham United manager Nuno Espirito Santo. Photo: John Walton/PA Wire.
That was made more frustrating given he rested players for the midweek EFL Cup victory over Tottenham. “The difficult thing to take from that is we rotated the team a lot in midweek for freshness in the players, that didn’t seem to be there,” he added.
Newcastle have now entered their seventh month since winning away in the Premier League, which is one of those stats undeniably bolstered by encompassing the summer off-season, but incompatible with a club aiming for the very top.
The last away win in the league came against Leicester in April and Newcastle will not have a better chance of altering their form than a trip to West Ham. They went into this game on an even worse run without a home victory.
Since that last away win Newcastle have scored 22 goals at home from 10 games, an average of 2.2 per game. Away it is four goals in eight games, 0.5 per match. Possession stats are slightly improved away, 54pc vs 53pc at home, but perhaps in an increasingly direct Premier League that is not the positive it once was.
In their eight-match sequence without an away victory they have failed to score in four, but they are leakier at the back as well, conceding 11 goals at 1.4 per game, compared to eight from 10 at home, 0.8 per game.
Excellent
Their travelling support is reliably excellent, but however noisy, they cannot match the atmosphere generated by St James’ Park at its loudest. Howe was asked if he believed his team had a mentality issue with under-performing away from home.
“I don’t think so. Obviously the numbers aren’t good, so it would be foolish for me to dismiss that outright. But I think we’ve got a very good group of professionals that care deeply and want to do well. Certainly we haven’t replicated our home form away, but I think some of the performances have been very good, we just didn’t turn some of those performances into wins.”
This was a match in a different category though, with no notable chances created after Jacob Murphy’s opening goal. “It didn’t look like a Newcastle team we’ve seen in recent seasons,” said Howe. “I didn’t like the body language of the group … But certainly I’d never accuse my players of lacking effort.”
It is Brentford, Everton, then Sunderland away next in the league, all games that Newcastle at their best would hope to win. On a run like this though, you start finding danger lurking around every unknown corner.