'I don't like' - Eddie Howe disagrees with Jamie Carragher's Newcastle United claim

Eddie Howe has shut down Jamie Carragher's suggestion that Newcastle United look like a team ready for the end of the season.

The Liverpool legend was on punditry duty for Sky Sports on Monday night as the Magpies lost 3-2 to Chelsea. Goals from Nicolas Jackson, Cole Palmer and Mykhailo Mudryk cancelled out Alexander Isak and Jacob Murphy's strikes.

It was a Newcastle performance that Carragher was highly critical of after losing their 12th Premier League game of the campaign, over double the amount they lost last season when they finished fourth inside the Champions League spots.

Speaking after the game, Carragher said: "I adored Newcastle last season. It was their intensity, and it took me back to when Jurgen Klopp first came in at Liverpool where people were running everywhere.

"It looks like a team who are almost ready for the end of the season. If I just looked at that performance and I didn't know this team, that is not acceptable the way they defended. This is an average Chelsea team, let's not forget that."

Those comment was put to Howe, who replied: "I don't like to hear that. I didn't know he had said that, but he is entitled to his opinion. That's not how we are internally. That's not how we're working.

"Our training standards and intensity are still there. We're determined to end the season well - regardless of what happens tomorrow. No part of us is thinking ahead - too far ahead anyway."

Newcastle travel to Manchester City in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup on Saturday evening, where the winner will advance to Wembley. But Howe doesn't believe the season rests entirely on the City result as he sets his sights of sealing European qualification.

"I don’t think the season is on this one game, I don’t think that is necessarily healthy to look at it," Howe told NewcastleWorld. "In some respects that can help you but it can also have a negative effect.

"When you look at our league position, we’re still very much in the hunt for finishing as high as we can and then we’re looking at trying to squeeze into Europe, and that will be our aim until the end of the season regardless of what happens tomorrow.

"But tomorrow is a separate game, the tie is a one off and we want to give everything we can to get through because the experience of Wembley and an FA Cup semi-final… if we can push through into that round then we’re very close to where we want to be, which is the final of a major cup competition."