Eddie Howe reflects on watching an ‘unrecognisable’ Newcastle United against West Ham | OneFootball

Eddie Howe watched on as his Newcastle United team lost 3-1 to West Ham United.

The scoreline was a shock.

However, the way that Newcastle played was even more shocking.

Eddie Howe sounds as bewildered as the rest of us.

The Newcastle United Head Coach declaring his team were ‘unrecognisable’…

Eddie Howe gives his reaction after West Ham 3 Newcastle 1:

“The dynamism wasn’t there today.

“The physicality, the energy, missing from our performance.

“Hugely frustrating for us.

“A poor performance.

“We weren’t ourselves today.

“The numbers aren’t good in terms of our away form recently.

“We haven’t replicated our home form away but I think some of the performances have been good.

“But that is the worse we have played during that run of games, where we haven’t won.

“It didn’t look like a Newcastle United team that we’ve seen in recent seasons.

“I think the body language, the collective spirit on the pitch, loads of little things that contribute to our performance, weren’t there.

“The longer that first half went on, the more frustrated I was with our performance.

“We were unrecognisable in certain aspects of our game.

“I don’t think that was tactical and I don’t think that was necessarily technical.

It was a by-product of us just not being where we needed to be mentally.”

Eddie Howe asked about making three substitutions (Nick Woltemade, Emil Krafth, Anthony Gordon) as early as half-time:

“I just felt that the feel of the team was wrong and  weneeded to try and get some energy on the pitch.

“We were lacking in physicality today.

“Anthony was feeling his hip slightly.

“There were some tactical changes there as well to try and get a different feeling on the pitch.”

Eddie Howe now looking ahead to Athletic Bilbao in the Champions League:

“I want to see a response, I want to see an honesty, because that is what we have built all our success on.

“We will work together on that, then it is really important that we don’t overreact to one performance, but I think it’s also very important that we’re honest with each other.”

West Ham 3 Newcastle 1 – Sunday 2 November 2025 2pm

Match Stats

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Murphy 4

West Ham:

Paqueta 35, Botman OG 45+5, Soucek 90+7

Possession was Newcastle 62% West Ham 38%

Total shots were Newcastle 12 West Ham 15

Shots on target were Newcastle 4 West Ham 9

Corners were Newcastle 6 West Ham 7

Touches in the opposition box Newcastle 22 West Ham 21

Newcastle team v West Ham:

Pope, Krafth (Schar 45), Thiaw, Botman (Barnes 65), Burn, Bruno, Joelinton, Tonali, Gordon (Ramsey 46), Woltemade (Osula 46), Murphy (Elanga 77)