'They struggled': Kevin Nolan poses the big question Newcastle United fans must be wondering about

Newcastle United fell to another defeat on home soil on Monday as West Ham claimed a 2-0 victory at St James' Park.

The Magpies were on a nice little winning streak before the Hammers rocked up and smashed it to pieces with a deserved smash-and-grab win on Monday night.

Once again, Newcastle dominated possession but failed to produce any real chances, and those that were produced were duly squandered.

It has been a familiar story this season and now Kevin Nolan, who had a foot in both camps on Monday after representing both sides, has asked the big question of Newcastle's styleof play.

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Are Newcastle a counter-attacking side?

Nolan was speaking to BBC 5 Live about the game when he questioned whether Newcastle should simply be a counter-attacking side.

"West Ham dealt with Alexander Isak really well, he had opportunities and scored an early goal which was just offside. You never know, if that goes in, that gets the momentum going.

"It's something which is going to be looked at by Newcastle fans - are they that counter-attacking team that prefers to play teams who are going to be on top of them, or can they break teams down? Because they really struggled in the second half once West Ham went 2-0 up.

"I thought they tried to force things, they struggled to break them down and West Ham did well to keep the clean sheet."

The answer seems pretty obvious

Lately, it feels like the answer is staring us in the face. Newcastle really struggle to create when a team sits in and defends.

We can have all the eye-catching build-up play, but once we enter that final third we run out of ideas and can't break teams down.

When we play on the counter, we're far more deadly. It's probably not how Eddie Howe wants to play, but with the current crop of players, unfortunately, that's the side we are. It works, so we should stick with it and save all the fancy stuff for when we have more than a couple of players capable of executing it.