Newcastle United inviting disaster on a regular basis by doing this? | OneFootball

Newcastle United find themselves under the spotlight, with everything analysed to such an extreme degree these days.

They aren’t alone, this goes for all major clubs.

Everybody has the ability these days to watch every single Newcastle United match, no matter where they are in the world.

Long gone are the days where it was just those inside St James’ Park who could be seen as the only ones to have a valid opinion.

Then on top of all that, you have endless statistics that can be used to ‘prove’ whatever.

Sometimes though, despite all the information and endless analysis that is available, I still find myself at times thinking how on earth are they coming out with that nonsense?

After what happened in the Newcastle 2 Spurs 2 match, I have seen and heard Newcastle United fans criticising Eddie Howe for so often defending deep late on when having the lead and how this has regularly cost us points.

These comments obviously sparked (reignited?) by the fact that Eddie Howe replaced midfielder Lewis Miley with central defender Fabian Schar, with Newcastle United leading 2-1 and six of the nine added minutes still to play.

The brain cogs started whirring and I was thinking, is this really the case?

Is Eddie Howe regularly costing us, by going too defensive late on?

Or is this yet more nonsense, another feeble and baseless method of attack on our esteemed leader?

I had a look back at the last 12 matches Newcastle United had played, before this Spurs one last night.

Eddie Howe won eight of the twelve, so a bit difficult to see how he could be criticised for throwing away anything in them. Five of these eight wins saw United keep a clean sheet. In the other three wins – Fulham equalised on 56 minutes but Newcastle bounced back to win late on, Man City scored in the 68th minute in between our two goals, whilst at 4-0 down Everton got a 69th minute consolation goal.

What about the four defeats in these last 12 games, going back over two months?

Well at Brighton, Newcastle actually got done on the break when pushing for the winner themselves. At West Ham the damage was done in the first half and again, NUFC got done on the break in added time when trying to get an equaliser themselves. Against Brentford that was a long ball and more a case of caught short at the back, when the Bees got their killer goal to lead and Dan Burn sent off. Then Marseille was another case of the damage done far earlier (the five minutes after half-time) and Newcastle actually pressing late on for an equaliser that didn’t arrive.

Fair to say that in these past dozen matches there is zero trend of Eddie Howe costing us anything by going too defensive late on.

Actually, the previous (before Spurs) home match saw Eddie Howe bring Sven Botman on in the 77th minute for Lewis Hall who was knackered and rather than going like for like, Eddie went five at the back and three central defenders, which helped see United see out that win over Man City with a minimum of fuss.

I think last night, it was a more than valid tactic for Eddie Howe to make that Schar for Miley sub. Spurs had been most threatening on set-pieces and Danso’s long throws, so an extra central defender made sense. Miley is tall but not as good in the air as a 19 year old when defending in the air, as say Schar and the other centre-backs are.