'Better' - Eddie Howe agrees with Alan Shearer as Newcastle United lose to AFC Bournemouth

The Magpies’ nine-game winning streak came to crashing end at St James’ Park as Justin Kluivert - the son of former striker Patrick - netted a hat-trick.

Kluivert struck twice in the first-half, either side of Bruno Guimaraes’ equaliser, before his third in stoppage time. Milos Kerkez then found time to add another.

Newcastle legend Alan Shearer said “Bournemouth did a job on Newcastle, they deserved to win and were brilliant”. And Howe was unable to disagree.

“Firstly I have to congratulate our opponent, I thought they were better than us today,” said Howe. “I thought they played very well, never allowed us to find our rhythm in the game. Disappointed with our performance, that is not the level we’ve played at during the last group of games.

“I thought we looked devoid of energy today, a real problem athletically. You could see we were fatigued and never really recovered from a poor start to the game and ultimately a lot to reflect on from me.”

This was Newcastle’s third game in six days, leading Howe to believe his players suffered from fatigue but he didn’t want to use that an excuse.

Howe added: “My initial assessment is fatigue, that’s not making excuses. I thought they were better than us and we have to accept that but I think from our viewpoint, probably the three games in six days, we just looked lacking in that sharpness and that sprinting work that they had and we didn’t.

“I may differently after watching the game back but that’s how I feel now. It was difficult to change the team, we had just won nine in a row. We’ll beat myself up over that, I think that’s a difficult one for me personally to think about rotating the team in this moment.

“But even then with our substitutions, I don’t think they had a positive impact either so yeah, they were better from us.”