Howe on Tonali’s injury and Newcastle’s Champions League exit | OneFootball

Eddie Howe says Sandro Tonali is a doubt for Sunday’s derby against Sunderland after going off with an injury in the heavy defeat to Barcelona.

Tonali was a doubt before the game because of illness, but recovered in time to play.

However, he was forced off in the second half of the 7-2 defeat and Howe says it was because of a groin/hip issue.

“Yeah, I’d say he’s a doubt,” Howe said.

“It looks like he’s got a groin, sort of hip problem.

“I thought he performed really well in the first half and we really missed him in that second period.”

Newcastle were level at 2-2 on the night and 3-3 on aggregate going into the break before Lamine Yamal scored a penalty after Kieran Trippier had fouled Raphinha.

Barcelona then put the tie out of sight at the start of the second half and Howe says his side did not react well enough to the setback before the half-time whistle.

“Our defending today was not at the level it was just a few days ago against Chelsea,” he said.

“As well as we played in the first half, and I thought we were outstanding in many aspects, it was really a great representation of how we want to play, we had too many individual errors within the performance to sort of carry that great performance through.

“If we defended anywhere near the level we can, I think we would have been leading at half-time not trailing.

“I don’t think, psychologically, you can say that we recovered from the moment before half-time. That’s what it looked like to me.

“In the second half we certainly didn’t have the same energy and when the game was effectively over, we didn’t react well to that either.”

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