Eddie Howe admits players were 'jaded' going into Celtic friendly as Newcastle United suffer pre-season battering
Newcastle United were comprehensively beaten by a much fitter Celtic side on Saturday as the Magpies got their pre-season adventures underway in Scotland.
A 4-0 hammering by the Scottish champions was likely not how Eddie Howe was hoping to kick off his pre-season tour, but given the difference in where each team is in their pre-season cycle, it's probably not too surprising either.
Celtic are just two weeks away from getting their season underway and, as such, are starting to take their pre-season games more seriously, putting out a side which more closely resembles their preferred XI. Other than a behind-closed-doors friendly against Carlisle, this was Newcastle's first foray into the pre-season fixtures, and it showed.
Still, it wasn't fun to watch the lads looking so disjointed and rusty yesterday, which is why it has taken us until the morning after to sift through the aftermath.
A lot of the post-match talk focused on Alexander Isak and his suspicious absence, and we will get to that, but first, let's see what Eddie Howe had to say about the game itself.
Eddie Howe says he players were not ready for such a strong test
Speaking after the game, Howe admitted that his players were jaded after a difficult week in Austria, as he put the players through their paces in the first full training sessions with everybody back.
“I think the pre-season is designed to really stretch us. We know we've got a very challenging season ahead with all the competitions. This is a test that may have come a little too early for us.
“We've had a long week in Austria, I'm not making excuses by the way, but the lads came in, and I said before the game, they come into the game jaded, slightly, but it was a great workout for us."
There will be some good to come out of this defeat
As annoyed and disappointed as we were with the performance yesterday, we said in our post-match write-up that it is just a friendly, and it is just about fitness and match sharpness. Neither team that Eddie Howe put out in either half of the game even closely resembled a first-team XI, and that's an important thing to remember, too.
Often, pre-season batterings can be a blessing in disguise anyway. We've seen it several times in Newcastle's past where it wakes the lads up.
Crucially, though, this one likely emphasised the enormous need for new players before the season gets underway, so hopefully it lit a fire under the recruitment team to stop messing about and get some deals done.
