There is one thing that should have become crystal clear for Eddie Howe ahead of massive Newcastle United game on Sunday
Newcastle United dropped points in the dying minutes of a game tonight for the umpteenth time this season as the inability to see out a game starts to become a huge cause for concern.
In a YouTube video today, Craig Hope said that Newcastle's conceding late is almost becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, and to see it happen again just a few hours after him saying that, it really is.
It has to be a mentality issue at this point. It may have started as just bad luck, poor coincidence or whatever, but now it's a pattern.
Unfortunately, though, that's not all we have to rant about tonight after watching Newcastle in action in Leverkusen tonight.
It kills us to say it, but we really have to question Joelinton's place in the team
Eddie Howe must now focus on Sunday's game against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light and picking the best possible eleven for that game, and it's probably safe to say that one player played his way out of contention tonight.
Whether the plan was to play Joelinton on Sunday or not, we'd be amazed if it is any more after another lacklustre performance by the Brazilian.
We've said it a million times, we absolutely adore Joelinton, but he's been shocking this season, and no amount of blind loyalty to the man can disguise the truth. He's just not affecting games any more in a positive way; if anything, his actions are almost exclusively negative.
Lewis Miley staked a huge claim to a place in the Newcastle starting eleven on Sunday
It was compounded tonight when he was hooked and replaced by youngster Lewis Miley, who instantly made an impact before grabbing the goal that put Newcastle into the lead.
The 19-year-old has done his chances the world of good for getting into that starting lineup for Sunday. It may be a starting eleven stacked with Newcastle supporting players for Eddie Howe, with Dan Burn, Lewis Hall, Lewis Miley and Jacob Murphy in contention to start. That can only be a good thing.
When it got to 89 minutes, and we hadn't seen Yoane Wissa tonight, that also made us think that the DR Congo striker could make his first start for the Toon on Sunday, too.
We'll take a closer look at that one on Friday, but for now, it is abundantly clear to us that Joelinton shouldn't be anywhere near that starting XI on Sunday.
