Eddie Howe admitted to feeling frustrated when Newcastle lost after a poor performance. The manager pledged to improve the team’s performance by making difficult decisions regarding who plays and spending more time practicing. Chris Wood scored three goals in 15 minutes, prompting some fans at St James’ Park to boo the team.
Eddie Howe on fans booing after poor performance
Eddie Howe is feeling more stressed at St James’ Park because Newcastle lost again on Boxing Day. They were beaten 3-1 by Nottingham Forest, making it their eighth loss in the last 12 games in all competitions. Howe’s team had been doing well at home, but their seven-game winning streak in the Premier League ended on Boxing Day when Chris Wood, a former Newcastle striker, scored three goals to win the match.
After the game, Howe said that Newcastle’s recent performance makes him feel uneasy, and he believes the solution to their problems is within the team.
“Whenever you lose games it is an uncomfortable feeling when your team is not at its peak. Concerned? You deal with a lot of emotions when you don’t get the result you want. I am feeling that. I like to keep my thoughts and analyze properly and make tweaks and changes. My gut feeling is that the answer lies within. The players we have are good enough. We have suffered those injuries. We have not had it easy. We are not at our best physically,” Howe said.
⚫️⚪️ Eddie Howe on ‘boos’ from Newcastle fans: “We're on a difficult run and any expression to that I respect and understand. But the atmosphere at the stadium was good, that’s what I ask”.
“We had so many injuries, it has been a difficult period”. pic.twitter.com/lpISssvOlJ
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) December 26, 2023
“We were not quite at our best and when you are not you get punished. There was a lot of good first half but the last action or pass was missing and that was frustrating. We wanted to make it 2-0 and in a commanding position. It has been an intense period. The players have physically given everything and we have acknowledged we have not been at our best and that is all we can do. We can now return to the training pitch for the first time in what feels like months. We need training ground time to refine missing parts of our game. Some of our decision-making was off, positioning or technically. It wasn’t a big tactical issue, we didn’t deal with moments in the game. I’ll be prepared to make any change that I think can benefit either the performance or the result and of course players are accountable for what they deliver,” he added.
“No amount of credit in the bank is big enough, you have to earn everything you get from the game. I’m a firm believer in that so players know they have to perform and we have to change our short-term form for sure. It will be nice to build up to games and training. I think we have suffered not having training ground time. And the inability to rotate the team has caught up with us,” he further added.
