Newcastle United manager Eddie Howeplaceholder image
Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe | Getty Images
Newcastle United have conceded eight goals in their last three Premier League games at St James’ Park.
Eddie Howe has rued his side’s defensive fragility as Newcastle United twice fluffed their lines against Everton.
On two occasions, the Magpies pegged David Moyes’ men back only to squander the scoreline within seconds. When Jacob Murphy’s volley rifled home in the closing stages, St James’ Park smelled blood.
Newcastle had dominated the second half until that point and, to all intents and purposes, were most likely to win the game. That was until Thierno Barry nestled home at the Leazes End to snatch all three points.
‘Difficult to give an explanation’ - Eddie Howe
Howe was asked why Newcastle fumbled after doing the hard yard to pull level. He responded: “It’s really difficult to give an explanation for that. We've worked so hard to get back into the game twice, as you say. Everton are a tough team to score against. Having to chase the game, you spend a lot of energy doing that and we hurt ourselves.
“I think there were some uncharacteristic errors on both goals. I think the second goal in particular probably affects us mentally as well because I don't think we played particularly well after that. It was a real spell at the beginning of the second half when we scored, where we were the dominant team and playing well.”
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Eddie Howe on defensive record
Newcastle have now conceded eight goals in their last three games at St James’ Park, with Everton the latest side not make light work of the Tyneside roar. On the defensive record, Howe added: “It’s such a strange one because we started the season so strong defensively on every metric. It looked like we were really difficult to score against and that sort of flipped on its head.
“It's (defensive fragility) been building. Our defensive resilience, our ability to keep the ball out the net has not been good enough and was (really) highlighted by today's performance. We shouldn’t have conceded three goals in that game but we did. That's something we've really got to focus on. We've got to get our dependability back and our reliability back and our defending.”
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