I asked Eddie Howe why Newcastle United are so inconsistent - this is the key issue

Newcastle won back-to-back games against Arsenal and Nottingham Forest before the international break but have since lost to West Ham United and drawn with Crystal Palace - two sides who sit in the bottom seven of the table.

The Magpies have slipped to 11th, yet still remain only four points off the top four.

Asked about his team’s inconsistency, Howe told NewcastleWorld: "That's not a clear one sentence answer. The Premier League this year is very, very even in terms of quality, I think there are a lot of teams that are very strong.

“I think maybe in previous years there has been a bigger gap between the top teams and other teams, and you've seen that gap in terms of the league table. This year it is very congested, very tight and we form part of that league at the moment where we are not being consistent enough to take ourselves away from the teams and we have to try and find the right solutions to find those consistent results.

"I think it says a lot about the strength of the league. You might come up with a whole of host of arguments as to why the league is so tight this year but I'm not going to do that. We have to focus on ourselves and make sure we are harder to beat, scoring more goals and attacking better as a group. These are things we're working on a daily basis."

Howe’s side were minutes away from winning at Crystal Palace on Saturday, despite failing to register a shot at goal. Marc Guehi’s own goal handed United the lead but Palace equalised in the 94th minute through Daniel Munoz.

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Only Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal scored more goals than Newcastle (85) in the Premier League last season. This campaign, they are the fourth lowest scorers (14).

But Howe believes his side’s quality in front of goal will return soon.

"I was confident at the start of the season that our general performances would improve from a low starting point,” he added.

“All the reasons we’ve discussed in previous press conferences, I'm still anticipating that will continue and will we find the missing part to our game, which is the most important part.

“The hardest part is the goalscoring and goal creativity - you can take it for granted so you have to really work towards it.

“I think we've got the players to do that and I've got no doubt we'll refind that. Once we do I think we'll then look a totally different team because the positive news from our start to the season is we've been good defensively. In the main we've been hard to score against, we haven't been perfect in that respect but it's a great start point and a great foundation to build on.

“If we can refind our goalscoring touch, which we have done for the majority of my time here."