Many Newcastle United fans will have hit the rage button after watching their side capitulate to Bournemouth at St James' Park in the Saturday lunchtime kick-off.
I had to have a couple of hours to calm down. A friend text me and said he'd flipped his coffee table over, and there have been fans online absolutely losing their minds after seeing Newcastle's nine-game winning streak come to an end with a 4-1 humiliation.
It's easy to point the finger at Newcastle's players for their lack of energy and sloppy passing. You could point fingers at Eddie Howe for not changing things up when it wasn't working. You could even point the finger at referee Stuart Atwell who thought he was presiding over a UFC match for much of the game. However, the reality is, Andoni Iraola's Bournemouth were tactically better than Newcastle on the day.
Bournemouth pressed, hurried and bullied Newcastle all game and we simply couldn't cope with it. All of the above points still stand, but when you have that many things going against you, all it takes is for the opposition to be on their game and this is what happens.
Alan Shearer took the high road on X after the game, opting not to criticise Newcastle, but to praise Bournemouth.
"Bournemouth did a job on Newcastle. They deserved to win and were brilliant. Tactically superb. #NEWBOU"
We are inclined to agree with the former Newcastle number nine. Bournemouth simply had Newcastle's number from minute one.
Eddie Howe used the excuse of having three games in six days for why Newcastle looked so leggy, and we're not denying that as a valid excuse, of course a fixture list like that is going to take its toll ... especially when you field the same players for every game.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it is the old adage, and we get it. We even advocated for sticking with the same XI going into the game, but we haven't been at Darsley Park, we haven't been speaking to the players. We didn't know just how knackered they all were. That's Howe and his team's job. Where was James Bunce's intervention?
We've said it already, but we absolutely cannot fathom how we're going to survive next season if we get into Europe if this is what we're like after a three-game week.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
![]() |
25 | 36 | 60 |
2 |
![]() |
25 | 29 | 53 |
3 |
![]() |
25 | 12 | 47 |
4 |
![]() |
25 | 17 | 44 |
5 |
![]() |
25 | 15 | 43 |
6 |
![]() |
25 | 13 | 43 |
7 |
![]() |
25 | 9 | 41 |
8 |
![]() |
25 | 5 | 39 |
9 |
![]() |
25 | -3 | 38 |
10 |
![]() |
25 | 0 | 37 |
11 |
![]() |
25 | 1 | 34 |
12 |
![]() |
25 | 12 | 30 |
13 |
![]() |
25 | -3 | 30 |
14 |
![]() |
25 | -4 | 30 |
15 |
![]() |
25 | -7 | 29 |
16 |
![]() |
25 | -18 | 27 |
17 |
![]() |
25 | -19 | 19 |
18 |
![]() |
25 | -27 | 17 |
19 |
![]() |
25 | -30 | 17 |
20 |
![]() |
25 | -38 | 9 |