Alan Shearer now points finger at Newcastle hierarchy as he believes they have let Eddie Howe down

Alan Shearer made his feelings on Newcastle United's attacking displays very clear over the weekend and suggested that there's a lack of confidence in the likes of Anthony Gordon that could be causing an issue.

Beyond the team's inability to score this season, there does seem to be something missing at the club and it's difficult to pin it down to just one thing.

Newcastle had a very difficult summer with a perfect storm of crap derailing the club off the back of a tough season. Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi left the club, Paul Mitchell came in as Dan Ashworth's replacement in the middle of a transfer window, Profit and Sustainability rules squeezed the life out of the recruitment team and as a result two top young players were sold. Eddie Howe's future was heavily scrutinised with the England role being vacant and many people backing him to be the next national boss. On top of that, the relationship between Mitchell and Howe didn't get off to the best of starts.

The biggest issue, however, was the clubs inability to work around all of this and find new quality players to join the club and when the recruitment team spent a month chasing Marc Guehi only to come away empty handed, that was the thing that really turned the mood sour at the club.

Alan Shearer feels Eddie Howe has been let down

A lot of work has been done behind the scenes to iron out these problems, but the performances on the pitch suggest there's still a lot of work to be done.

Now Alan Shearer has spoken about the board on The Rest Is Football podcast, refuting Gary Lineker's claims that the PIF are losing interest.

"No I don't (think they PIF are losing interest). The turnover of personnel in the summer hasn't helped at the top of the club with Amanda [Staveley] and Mehrdad [Ghodoussi] leaving. A new director of football has come in with Dan Ashworth leaving. I just don't think that has helped at all.

"I just think they have let the manager down in the last transfer window. I don't think they have helped him at all from where they were last season to where they are now.

"I know they have certainly not been helped by serious injuries, particularly to Sven Botman, but I don't think they are a better team now with a transfer window or two behind them than they were 18 months ago and that is a slight concern."

Eddie Howe could be starting to run out of time at Newcastle

Performances, and more specifically, results must change for the better soon or that small minority online who are already calling for Eddie Howe to go will slowly increase in numbers and get louder and louder until they become too difficult to ignore.

But while Eddie Howe must sort out the on-pitch issues, those above him have to back him in the next two transfer windows and get him the players he needs to make a difference.

Another transfer window without any quality additions will be a disaster for Newcastle and the longer they go on without addressing the lack of a quality right-winger and the lack of depth in the striker department, the worse things are going to get.