Howe admits Newcastle lacking confidence ahead of Arsenal clash | OneFootball

Eddie Howe has admitted that confidence levels in his Newcastle United squad are low ahead of taking on Arsenal in the Premier League this weekend.

The Magpies travel to the Emirates Stadium on Saturday on the back of four consecutive defeats in all competitions.

Recent losses to Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth have left them languishing in 14th in the table and severely harmed their chances of qualifying for Europe next season.

Newcastle now face an Arsenal side fighting to win the Premier League title and have only lost twice at home, but Howe hopes he can pick his players up as they look to turn their form around.

Eddie Howe admits Newcastle lacking confidence ahead of Arsenal clash

“We’ve lost a little bit of confidence,” he said in his pre-match press conference. “I think that was clear against Bournemouth on Saturday. With the recent results we’ve had and just the way things have fallen against us, players aren’t playing to their maximum level. You can see that.

“We’ve got some very, very good players in the squad that are underperforming and you can’t put a figure on how confidence can damage the individuals.

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“My job this week has been to support the players, to help the players, hopefully deliver some good work for them, then try and help them figure out how we can get back – individually and collectively – to our best levels.

“Everything falls back to the results and what we deliver on the pitch.

“The club will move forward; I’ve said that time and time again. The off-the-pitch stuff will take care of itself, but on the pitch, we have to be trying to continue the good momentum we’ve had over previous seasons.

“We’ve faltered a little bit of late, but that’s the challenge.”

Newcastle’s last win came against Chelsea last month and Howe wants his players to emulate that performance against Arsenal.

“It is definitely an opportunity for us because the next game is always an opportunity, whatever moment you’re in, to prove yourselves all over again – most importantly to ourselves,” he added.

“We owe it to everybody connected to the club to commit everything we have to try and get a result.

“We did that very recently against Chelsea. I think we can take a lot from that game in terms of our attitude, how we played and the endeavour, spirit, togetherness we showed. It’s only a few games ago, very recent.

“When you’re in a difficult run, it can seem like you’ve been in that for a long, long period of time and probably with the international break and the big length of time we had between games, it’s felt that way for us.

“We have to tap into those games where we performed really well.”

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