“We fear it’s not looking too good, he’s in a lot of pain, but it’s early days. It was a knee problem that came on gradually.” This was Eddie Howe’s message when discussing Anthony Gordon’s injury after Monday night’s 3-2 defeat to Chelsea.
The boss described it as a “strange” injury that did not come from one particular moment or challenge, but admitted the winger was in real pain at half-time after being taken off. It is currently “unclear how serious it is”, but it’s yet another huge injury concern.
“I can’t add too much to it. It was a knee injury. Strange. There was no mechanism or moment where he felt an injury in the game. It was just there in the game, but he was in quite a bit of pain at half-time.
“We don’t quite know how bad that is. He wasn’t moving right and he eventually succumbed to the injury.”
Worrying comments at the end of an awful night for Newcastle. It was our ninth defeat on the road and, with three more goals conceded, no Premier League side has let in more away from home so far this season.
Speaking about the result and performance, Howe said: “Strange game. A frustrating one for us. We started well but conceded with their first attack.
“It wasn’t a game of many chances, yet their was five goals. We were really good in spells but not good enough overall. The goals we conceded were really poor.
“I thought the control (of the game) was there. We didn’t have an issues with the flow of the game and were competitive. Our final ball wasn’t good enough today. We had a lot opportunities to test their back four (and didn’t), but it was the goals we conceded. Their first one is out of nothing. All three goals were similar. We didn’t defend those situations well enough and you’re going to lose games if you do that.
“A familiar feeling for us on the road. It’s been a tough period for us. We can defend better than that.
“I know we can hit the heights that we did previously, but we’re not doing it anywhere near often enough at the moment.”
I’m a big fan of Howe, but I can’t get on board with some of these comments. At no point did I feel we were in control and playing well, aside from our decent opening five minutes before we gifted Chelsea a soft opener.
There were so many individual errors both on and off the ball, yet it seemed a mistake on Howe’s part to deviate from a counter-attacking approach that worked so well against Wolves. Instead, we reverted back to a set up that hasn’t been working in recent months, seeing us look wide open in midfield and exposed defensively.
"I thought we were competitive" 😤
Newcastle boss Eddie Howe on his side's performance against Chelsea 🗣 pic.twitter.com/IDSPtwxrDG
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) March 11, 2024
