Newcastle United’s manager, Eddie Howe, expressed his thoughts after the team’s 1-0 defeat to Brighton at St James’ Park. Despite Newcastle dominating parts of the match, they were unable to break the deadlock in the first half. Even with the introduction of £100m worth of talent from the bench, including players like Miguel Almiron, Joe Willock, Harvey Barnes, and William Osula, the team failed to improve their performance and did not come close to securing an equaliser that could have at least salvaged a point. A draw would have preserved Newcastle’s unbeaten home streak since January.
In his post-match comments,
Eddie Howe reflected: “I don’t think our substitutions today necessarily helped our performance. I will give you an honest opinion. For whatever reason today it didn’t. I didn’t really like us in the last 20 minutes. I don’t think we chased the game particularly well.”
The team seemed disjointed in the second half, and some players, such as Almiron, Bruno Guimaraes, Tino Livramento, and Anthony Gordon, had not had a full week of training, leading to questions about whether this affected their preparation. Howe commented on the challenges following an international break.
Eddie Howe said “You can never make excuses. Every team has the same problems and issues during an international break. It is never easy because you are juggling lots of different things at the same time. Our record after international breaks has been excellent. I thought our performance was good, I think it was swings and roundabouts from early season when we weren’t playing well when we were winning. Now we are playing much better and the results aren’t there.”