Eddie Howe has been talking ahead of Newcastle United taking on Spurs
The match schedule continuing to be relentless.
Yet another midweek match three nights after the defeat to Brentford.
Newcastle United taking on Spurs in North London.
A 7.30pm start on Tuesday night.
Newcastle United looking to get a big three points, which would take them seven points clear of Spurs and start making up ground towards the upper end of the table.
Eddie Howe speaking at his Newcastle United pre-match press conference ahead of facing Spurs in North London:
Eddie Howe on the need for unity:
“I think that if you don’t have that, you lose everything. At the moment we still have that, and that’s the most important thing. The supporters, even on Saturday, again were incredible for us. That’s never taken for granted, that’s never, from our side, expected. We have to earn it. We have to continue to have the respect of our supporters, and the only way we can do that is with our intention in the next game, with how we attack the next game, with everything we give off with our body language – the supporters will feed off it, and we need to make sure it’s a positive response. I’m confident it will be, and I can’t thank the supporters for their loyalty enough.”
Eddie Howe on where Newcastle United need to improve:
“I think firstly we have to defend better. When you look back at the last run of games, we haven’t defended our goal well enough and that’s cost us those games. It’s a simple thing to say and sometimes a difficult thing to execute, but we need to find solutions to our defensive vulnerabilities. And of course we need to be more clinical the other way. The two things go hand-in-hand. We’ve not defended well enough and we haven’t been clinical enough at the other end, so it’s a bad mix and that’s a big issue for us.”
Eddie Howe on defeat to Brentford and now moving on from that:
“I was really disappointed on Saturday with the result. We’ve tried to take ownership of that, and now we focus on the future. Hopefully we’ll have a good day’s training today, and a massive game tomorrow.”
Asked about team news, Eddie Howe on Lewis Miley, Anthony Gordon and Joelinton:
“Miley, I need to see today – we’ll get another update on his progress. He got a nasty bang to his leg so it’s like a sort of dead leg that’s dragged on a little bit longer than we thought, so we’ll see how he is. Gordon, we’ll make a check on today and see how he’s progressing. Hopefully a big improvement in him. Joelinton won’t make this game.”
Eddie Howe on dealing with one of the toughest spells in over four years at Newcastle United:
“I think (it is) any time when you’re not getting the results that you want. I don’t think performances have been particularly bad – statistically we’re still pretty strong in every game, but the results certainly haven’t matched that.It’s been a difficult run of games, it will continue to be a difficult run of games for us, but that’s where we all need to show our strength of character, resolve, resilience and our feeling of how important this is to us. That needs to show, most importantly, on the pitch.”