At this moment in time it seems that Newcastle United cannot keep themselves out of the English press, but it is not really for all the right reasons. A few days on from manager Eddie Howe effectively being forced to focus on ‘why’ and ‘how’ he had not been approached by the Football Association over the formerly vacant England head coach position, and what his thoughts were on the fact he had not seemingly even made the shortlist, he was back in front of the media on Saturday evening trying to explain away how his side had dominated a second consecutive Premier League game without managing to score.
With 46 year old Howe undoubtedly still smarting from the scoreless draw with now serially relegation threatened Everton, as well as taking some time off during the October international break, our gaffer would have been pouring over plans to ensure that such dominance did not go to waste and that we did not conspire again to only take a point from the tie. Boosting his hopes of that happening would have been the return to contention of 25 year old, Swedish international striker, Aleksander Isak and for those fans who like a flutter and bet on Newcastle matches with Lottoland Sports, he would have undoubtedly have been the go to option to open the scoring for many.
Not scoring has been a theme of late, but not quite with our Everton dominance, as we failed to find the back of the net from open play in the three games our reported £63 million capture from Spanish La Liga side Real Sociedad had missed. The last thing Howe would have wanted in his pre game press conference was to be so distracted by almost endless England talk, as whatever his personal feelings on the FA’s decision he could not air them if he wanted to anyway. More importantly, his full focus would have been on the again impressive Brighton and Hove Albion, as given their form, they would prove to be a trickier opposition than Everton.
On Saturday afternoon, they proved to be just that as well. We again dominated possession, albeit slightly less than our last game, and in comparison to Everton we created even more chances over all (double), had greater shots on target and had one shot more than they did over the course of the 90 minutes.
Yet somehow we managed to not even come out of this tie with a point to show for our efforts. Brighton spent almost the entirety of the first half on the back foot, yet at the half time break they were the side that had established the narrow 1-0 advantage. We had a number of very promising openings and the best chances fell to the aforementioned Isak and Anthony Gordon, but we just could not get the breakthrough and at points Brighton were defending like their futures depended on it.
Having scored with their first shot on target, fans will be forgiven for wondering where else in the game they genuinely posed us a real problem. For Howe, the 36 odd hours between press conferences have been a period to forget as it could have quite easily been different.
Whilst it is a dip, perspective is needed. Whilst we are struggling up front based last season’s more free flowing scoring, defensively we have massively improved and it is only our second defeat of the year, and Fulham was the only time an opponent has scored more than once again us. It is also our first home defeat since January.
It is a tough way to end the month with a double header against Chelsea, but if we keep creating chances like that, it is only a matter of time before we start making them count again.
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