'No excuses' - Eddie Howe issues strong message as £37m Newcastle United move fails v Fulham
Eddie Howe says Newcastle United can have “no excuses” for their 2-1 defeat to Fulham at St James’ Park.
Jacob Murphy handed the Magpies the lead at half-time on his 200th appearance for the club but goals from Raul Jimenez and Rodrigo Muniz completed Fulham’s turnaround.
United have now suffered back-to-back defeats at St James’ Park. Against AFC Bournemouth, Howe accepted his team may have been fatigued but gave his team no out ball this afternoon.
“Yeah, certainly there's no excuse today, that's why I'm not trying to give us one,” said Howe. “There's no excuse for what we did today. We have to own it fully and take full responsibility for it.
“There's certainly no excuses from us. We had a week to prepare the game. I thought we prepared the game well in terms of our training and performances. I'm unsure as to why that wasn't the case.”
Howe agreed there was an air of inevitability about Fulham’s equaliser, which arrived on the hour-mark.
The United head coach reacted immediately by introducing Joe Willock and Kieran Trippier from the bench but neither change had the desired effect.
“Yeah, I'd agree, it did feel inevitable, but it's very difficult because I think in that moment, as I said earlier, we don't have a huge array of choices from the bench,” said Howe. “You're thinking, well, ‘let's change something tactically or personnel-wise’. We weren't 100% sure that any change we'd make in that moment would make us stronger.
“I was hoping we would just find a way individually to get back into that second half. As I said, it took the equaliser for us to do that.
“As I said, I think if in that moment we'd scored a second goal, I think we'd have won the game and put it down as a bad performance, but a good result, but it wasn't to be.”