Newcastle United failed to exploit West Ham United’s biggest weakness in Sunday’s 3-1 defeat at the London Stadium.
Here we are again, talking about another poor showing from Newcastle United on the road.
We had hopes of a rare away-day victory when Jacob Murphy opened the scoring at West Ham United.
That was as good as it got, though, as Newcastle fell to a 3-1 defeat in the capital.
Bruno Guimaraes looks dejected during West Ham United v Newcastle United
Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images
Alan Shearer frustrated with Newcastle United’s set pieces
Newcastle should have kicked on after Murphy’s opener, but failed to seize the initiative.
Former Newcastle striker Alan Shearer has shared his frustration while speaking live on Premier League Productions after the full-time whistle.
Shearer accused Newcastle players of being ‘lazy’ and one phase of the game really irritated him.
Shearer noted that Howe made tactical tweaks, but Newcastle retained a height advantage throughout.
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West Ham have been exposed again and again from set pieces this season, but Newcastle created very little from those situations.
Shearer couldn’t believe that Newcastle didn’t create more from dead balls, believing that the Magpies had the power and strength to cause problems.
“He was searching for something, he changed the system at half-time, he went to three at the back with two wing-backs, that didn’t work,” said Shearer.
“15 minutes later, he went back to a back four, but having said all that, they still had the height, and when you look at the problems that West Ham have had this season, particularly from set pieces, I would have thought, with the power and the strength and the height that Newcastle have, then they would have caused far more problems than they did with the set pieces that they had,” he added.
Alan Shearer bang on with Newcastle set-piece criticism
Newcastle were not good enough in any facet of the game, but the lack of set-piece threat was unacceptable.
The Magpies have scored three goals from set pieces this season, some way short of league-leading Arsenal with 10.
Nobody has conceded more set-piece goals in the Premier League this season than West Ham, with nine.
This was a golden chance for Newcastle to really ramp up the set-piece threat and expose West Ham’s biggest weakness.
Instead, Newcastle offered little from set plays and let West Ham off the hook despite having the likes of Dan Burn, Fabian Schar, Sven Botman and Malick Thiaw in the box.