Stats around three players hooked by Eddie Howe as Newcastle United struggled against Wolves are damning
Newcastle United missed out on the opportunity to climb up to fifth in the Premier League table on Sunday. All they had to do was beat rock bottom Wolverhampton Wanderers, but not only could they not do that, but they could also only amass two shots on target all game.
In what is becoming an all-too-popular phrase, Newcastle were once again toothless in attack. The Magpies kept the ball well in the middle of the park, passing sideways and backwards, but as soon as a forward pass was on, it was misplaced.
More criminally, when they did get into good positions to play a cross into the box, the crosses would go in with decent quality, only for there to be no attacking presence to get on the end of them.
On 67 minutes, as is so often the case, Eddie Howe made his changes, bringing off Sandro Tonali, Anthony Gordon and Nick Woltemade, all of whom had absolutely stinking games, but it is only now becoming apparent just how poor they were.
Newcastle were poor yesterday, but these three were especially terrible
Remembering how much of the ball Newcastle had (they finished the game with 76% possession), Nick Woltemade, in his hour minutes on the pitch, touched the ball fewer times than Nick Pope as pointed out by FootballFanCast.
Sandro Tonali managed to misplace 34 of his 39 forward passes; when added to his one tackle and one interception, it was perhaps one of the worst displays we've seen from the Italian since his move from AC Milan.
Finally, there's Anthony Gordon, who hasn't scored a goal in open play for over a year now, who once again provided absolutely zero attacking threat, having no shots on target and creating zero chances for his side.
How do we fix this problem?
Just to reiterate, in case you weren't sure what you just read: We are talking about Italy international Sandro Tonali, England international Anthony Gordon and Germany international Nick Woltemade.
Three players of outstanding quality who were all absolutely stinking in the same game. This is more than just a bad day at the office; this is a deep-rooted issue.
We said in our post-match report yesterday that the club needs to bring in a sports psychologist, and seeing these stats only proves it. These aren't bad players by any means, so it's clearly something else. Or, and I don't want to light this touch paper, is it an issue with management? We don't want to turn on Eddie Howe, but he's failing to get a handle on whatever the issue is, and it is becoming a problem.
