Newcastle United were absolutely thrashed by Bournemouth in the Premier League on Saturday.
Eddie Howe’s side were in fact lucky to only lose 4-1 on a dreadful day at St James’ Park, with the Cherries having also hit the post all while having a goal ruled out.
A brilliant scrambling save from Martin Dubravka also saw Newcastle stave off an even bigger thrashing against Howe’s former club.
After such brilliant form of late, this was a brutal reality check for Newcastle.
The likes of Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon failed to impress for Newcastle against Bournemouth, while a lot of the defending left an awful lot to be desired.
Credit to the Cherries, however. They were missing some big players but still rocked up to St James’ and thrashed one of Europe’s top teams.
Bournemouth star Antoine Semenyo pointed out exactly what the away side saw in Newcastle’s set-up to have helped them on their way to a statement victory.
Antoine Semenyo names what Bournemouth noticed they could punish about Newcastle
Newcastle are scouting Semenyo as one of their targets on the right-wing and the Ghana international certainly gave them something to think about.
The 25-year-old provided the opening assist for Justin Kluivert and gave both Tino Livramento and Kieran Trippier the run around all afternoon.
Speaking to Premier League Productions, Semenyo in fact revealed that Bournemouth knew Newcastle would look to play out from the back.
Such was their scouting of Howe’s team, they knew to press when Dubravka passed out to either of the two centre-backs.
“We knew they had moments when they’d keep it at the back and we wanted to catch out the back four,” he said.
“As soon as the goalkeeper passed to the centre back that was our trigger to go and it worked out perfectly.”
Newcastle United players weren’t happy with each other during Bournemouth defeat
Newcastle’s sloppiness on the ball was not only limited to their defenders of course.
However, their inability to get things going from deeper positions even infuriated some of the attacking players in Howe’s team.
Gordon was heard telling the Newcastle defenders to improve their distribution, such was the level of the frustration in play.
What a brutal reality check.
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