Eddie Howe sends message to Newcastle United supporters as Sandro Tonali decision booed

Newcastle suffered a 2-1 defeat at Chelsea on Sunday afternoon, extending their run without a Premier League win to five matches. Howe’s side 12th in the Premier League after nine games.

Alexander Isak cancelled out Nicolas Jackson’s 28th minute opener before an mistake by the Swede allowed Cole Palmer to dribble forward and beat goalkeeper Nick Pope on distance.

Asked about supporters maybe feeling “disillusioned” right now, Howe replied: “I think, as always for me, it’s about sticking together and the supporters are probably the most important part of any football club in that. I think the players at the moment are showing that spirit, I thought we did today.

“It was a really good psychological performance as in we gave everything and kept going until the end. We were resilient at times when we needed to be.

“The supporters here today  were fantastic with us at the end because I think they could see the effort and some of the quality in our play was very high. We went toe-to-toe with Chelsea today, we were very aggressive because that’s the team we want to be.

“We want to be here on a level playing field with these teams and take the game to them. I thought we did that, and hopefully our supporters can see that and continue to back us like they have done from the first day we arrived.”

The biggest frustration for some supporters was seeing Sandro Tonali withdrawn in the 68th minute. That brought some boos from the away end, similar to when the Italian was brought off in the 1-0 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion last weekend.

Howe said: “I understand the supporters love Sandro and want to see him stay on the pitch but every decision I make, in my eyes, is for the benefit of the team and with the view of the games coming up. Sandro can only do his bit that he becomes indispensable but I think there's more to come from him.

“I thought the starting trio [Tonali, Bruno Guimaraes, Joelinton] were OK and I say OK because we can be better. But I thought they physically did well for us, they had to as they had a lot of work to get through. Technically was OK, again it can be better.

“I thought we started the second-half poor with the ball. We made changes to try and get back into the game, I’m limited sometimes with my selections on that as in who I can bring off.

“I wanted to bring the three players on that I feel could make a difference. We’ve got three games coming up this week so always difficult positions.”