Newcastle United fell to their fourth Premier League defeat of the season at Villa Park today and gave their worst performance under Eddie Howe.
Last week’s first half nightmare at Brentford was replicated for the entire 90 minutes at Villa Park today as Unai Emery’s Aston Villa picked apart a Newcastle side that just weren’t on their game at all.
Former Liverpool midfielder Steve McManaman was on co-commentator duties for BT Sport and he used the perfect word to sum up Newcastle’s display – “Sleepy”.
“Sleepy” was maybe even being kind – Newcastle were woeful
I can’t remember a time under Eddie Howe we were looked so poor. It would have been genuinely impossible to pick a Newcastle man of the match because every one of them was poor. Every opposition player today outclassed the Newcastle boys. Ollie Watkins had Fabian Schar and Sven Botman tied up in knots all game.
Kieran Trippier and Bruno Guimaraes are usually both good for a 7/10 performance even when the rest of the team are poor, but even they were dragged down today.
It took Aston Villa just 30 seconds to let Newcastle know what kind of day they were in for when Watkins burst forward ahead of the Magpies defence and rolled a shot off the post. They then hit the bar later on before eventually breaking the deadlock.
Howe’s changes didn’t have the same effect this week
Eddie Howe tried to change things up again just after half time, playing Callum Wilson and Alexander Isak together and it nearly paid dividends immediately, but Emi Martinez was equal to Wilson’s effort, which would have been ruled out for offside anyway.
The game finished 3-0 with Villa having a goal ruled out for offside and having hit the woodwork twice. The score line actually flattered the Magpies.
It has to be a wakeup call for Eddie Howe and it will give him plenty to work on this week ahead of next week’s massive home game against Tottenham which just became even more important after today.
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