'A game of frustration': Eddie Howe tries to see positives after Newcastle United struggle at Molineux
Newcastle United once again struggled to deal with a team playing a low block as Wolverhampton Wanderers stifled any creativity the Magpies may have had.
Not for the first time, the Magpies had absolutely no answer for a team sitting deep and soaking up pressure. Newcastle could only play the ball sideways and backwards, hoping for an opening to appear, and if one ever did, it was closed up as soon as it was spotted, and any potential forward pass was cut out.
It makes for a dull game and one that is highly frustrating to watch, but if every team we played set up in a low block, we'd be lucky to get 38 points a season. We'd draw every game 0-0 because we have no idea how to break them down.
Despite this latest stalemate, Eddie Howe was still able to try to put a positive spin on things in his post-match interview with Sky Sports.
Eddie Howe must have been watching a different game
On one hand, we appreciate Howe's positive mental attitude, but at times it really grinds our gears. We're sure he's more critical behind the scenes, and he does get stuck into his players when they're poor, but sometimes, we as fans want to hear it too. We want the raw honesty. Instead, we get this watered-down admission that things weren't great spun into a positive:
"We were trying and we tried right to the end to win that game. It was a game of frustration for us. They played very low and minimised space and we had to have the intention of trying to win the game in every moment.
"We had a lot of the ball. I thought we didn't do enough with it; our cutting edge was missing. But I thought we played better the longer the game went on and I thought the substitutes made a positive impact. With the ball, I thought we had the control of the game very early.
“And I thought there were moments for us, goalscoring opportunities that we didn’t take today and you’re looking for an individual moment or player to make the difference, or a set-play or something to spark us into life. And we had the chances even right to the end, Bruno had a couple of moments, Joelinton had a couple of moments but it just didn’t fall for us.”
What chances did Eddie Howe see that we clearly missed?
That last line really bugged us. "We had the chances even right to the end, Bruno had a couple of moments, Joelinton had a couple of moments but it just didn’t fall for us." He's obviously talking about Bruno's shot on target that was parried into the path of Joelinton, who had a follow-up shot on target, neither of which was hit with any real conviction.
They were literally our only chances. Anything else you could deem a chance was a half-chance at best, except maybe for that first-half header that Nick Woltemade failed to get on the end of. If he'd connected with the ball rather than fresh air, things may have been very different.
You'd think we lost that game yesterday with the rage that's still bubbling, and in truth, when you fail to score against the team rooted at the bottom of the table, it should feel like a defeat.
