£100m Newcastle United decision backfires after Sandro Tonali 'boos' & Bruno Guimaraes cramp
Eddie Howe gave an honest appraisal of Newcastle United’s 1-0 defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion - admitting that his second-half substitutes backfired.
Despite trailing to Danny Welbeck’s first-half goal, Howe felt his side’s “general performance for 60/65 minutes was really good”, however, he was less than impressed with the final 20 minutes.
And that coincided with his substitutions. Harvey Barnes and Joe Willock replaced Jacob Murphy and Sandro Tonali near the hour-mark before Miguel Almiron, Sean Longstaff and Will Osula were introduced in the closing stages.
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"To be honest I don't think our substitutions helped our performance,” said Howe. “I'll be the first to give you an honest opinion. Sometimes the opposite happens, you make changes and it elevates your team. Whenever I make changes I'm hoping for that outcome.
For whatever reason today it didn't. I didn't really like us in the last 20 minutes and we didn't chase the game particularly well. That's something we'll look at."
The decision to take Tonali off was greeted by a smattering of boos while seeing Guimaraes - United’s captain - depart in the 85th minute was also a surprise.
“I think he's doing well, I had no issues with his performance today,” Howe said on Tonali. “I think he played well and played his part in a dominant performance today in the heartbeat of the midfield.
“I'm aware of the lads who play internationals and the loads they have in between and we're monitoring closely how fatigued they are. Of course, Bruno was getting cramp at the end and Sandro was a little fatigued when we brought him off.
“I don't think the changes helped us so that's something I'll have to look at.”
Four of the five players Howe withdrew were recently on international duty but the Newcastle boss refused to use that as an excuse. He said: “You can never make excuses because every team has the same problems and issues during the international break. It's never easy because you're juggling different things at the same time and our record after international breaks has been excellent to this point.
“I thought our performance was good. It's swings and roundabouts from the early season where we weren't playing well and winning and now we're playing much better and the results aren't there.
“I'm a believer that if you continue to do the right things and perform as well as you can consistently then long-term the results will come.”