The Magpies head to Arsenal after seeing their European dream fade after a poor run in the second half of the season
Alan Shearer has weighed in on underfire Newcastle United boss Eddie Howe.
Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe(Image: Newcastle United via Getty Images)
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Eddie Howe admits that Newcastle United are feeling "the pain" of losing games as they head into their tough encounter against the Gunners tonight.
The Magpies are slumped in 14th place and have lost four games on the spin in all competitions leaving Howe under immense pressure from some sections of the fanbase. Howe was reassured of his future internally this week but admitted on Friday that he may need five wins from the last five games to ease the pressure on himself.
Going into the encounter at the Emirates Stadium, Howe said: "We're all feeling that pain at the moment. It's been a difficult period for us. We're very determined to try and put that right and determined to try and win as many games as we can.
"We've prided ourselves historically on if we lose a game, fighting to the end and giving everything to try and get a result. I feel the players are currently at the moment maybe lacking in a little bit of confidence - we've lost a bit of our normal regular flow and rhythm that we've had.
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"There's only one way to re-find that though and that's through, in my opinion, hard work, a really good period of training, players staying very stable mentally and seeing it for what it is, and just trying to rediscover and enjoy their football and find their best form again."
Newcastle went into the season with high hopes of adding another trophy to the cabinet at St James' Park after it had been dusted down for the first time in 70 years to make way for a domestic honour in the shape of the Carabao Cup. But the reality for Newcastle is that they will be lucky to scrape a top 10 finish and the Arsenal game is the last fixture they need at the moment given Mikel Arteta's need for three points to take his team back to the top of the table.
Howe said: "It's been difficult this year. We're never going to have a stable team because of the amount of games we've played. So we're always going to be with the run that we had, playing every three games. It was always going to be a sort of a state of rotation because very, very difficult to play the same players continually.
"But, I think that was healthy for us at stages through the season because everyone was involved, everyone was playing a big part in our success. Now we're in a different moment in our season, we're playing week to week.
"We can potentially have a more stable team, but we haven't performed to the best level so I'm searching for, to a degree, the players that want to step up and play every week by performing at their best levels."
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