Ian Wright has revealed his surprise at Eddie Howe’s post-match comments following last night’s 3-2 defeat at Chelsea, believing our approach was all wrong and played into their hands.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, Howe said: “We were really good in spells but not good enough overall. I thought the control (of the game) was there. We didn’t have an issue with the flow of the game and were competitive.”
In our previous game – a 3-0 win over Wolves at St James’ Park – we sat a little deeper, benefited from a compact midfield and hit on the break. Many expected Howe to adopt the same approach at Stamford Bridge, yet our pressing and high line left our back four exposed, causing familiar problems as we went on to ship three poor goals.
Wright was a guest on Monday Night Football and revealed his surprise at Howe’s tactics and post-match comments, being “very confused” by claims we had control of the game and questioning why we didn’t opt for a low-block; not only to frustrate Chelsea but build on the approach that worked so successfully in our previous game.
He also criticised our press, which was weak on the night, along with Sven Botman and Bruno Guimaraes’ performance, feeling Tino Livramento was our only positive on the night.
“I was very surprised that they played a high line. And the press wasn’t very good at all. Especially when you consider that Pope was a very good sweep of keeper. Botman coming in had a poor game today.
“I cannot understand why they didn’t play more of a deep block and frustrate Chelsea, who could be frustrated. We’ve seen that. And they didn’t do that.
“I was very confused by some of the things that Eddie was saying because I didn’t see where they had any kind of control. I thought Guimaraes was vert poor. Couldn’t get himself away from the fact that Jackson and Connor Gallagher were in and around him. Not enough movement from him and Almiron had to get taken off.
“It was unfortunate for Gordon. Livramento tried, but other than that, a very, very poor performance.”
A scathing review of Newcastle's performance from @IanWright0 ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/UaQKk7YGjw
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) March 11, 2024
I totally agree with Wright here. Listening to Howe’s post-match interview, I was baffled to hear him praise our control of the game when we were regularly giving the ball away cheaply and scrambling to recover as Chelsea countered. We didn’t create much, we made so many mistakes and we moved back to an approach that has seen us leak goals for months now.
Yeah, anybody else miss the good old days under Benitez of playing nine at the back?
Daveys **** mate(Quote)
Spot on had plenty of the ball and created very little got what we deserved ,nothing, usual defensive frailty as has shown since December
MR MARTIN SOUTER(Quote)