Eddie Howe had very little to shout about as Newcastle United were weak and disappointing against a top Arsenal team.
It almost felt as if the game was over as soon as Newcastle had conceded the first goal after less than 20 minutes as the visitors were yet to even really get out of their own half.
It was a night to forget for Loris Karius who was making his Premier League debut for Newcastle, but Howe, speaking on NUFCTV, defended the goalkeeper and claimed he did nothing wrong in the game.
Karius suffers disappointing debut vs Arsenal
There wasn’t a lot of expectation going into the game as Newcastle had been conceding goals for fun while Arsenal were coming off the back of 5-0 and 6-0 victories in the league.
However, despite not expecting anything from the game, it was still a disappointing performance all round and one that will worry Newcastle supporters heading into their final stretch of games this season.
Karius wasn’t particularly at fault for any of the goals, as Howe explains, and it was just a shame to see the 30-year-old be put in such a difficult position when he hasn’t had much football to start with.
Howe defended his shot-stopper after the game, however, and claimed that he was badly let down by the defence who have been massively underperforming in the last few weeks.
On Karius, Howe said: “I think we didn’t defend him and our goal well enough and we haven’t done that well enough in recent weeks so that’s definitely something for me to think about.
“Loris did nothing wrong, I think he made some good saves. He kicked okay but yeah tough night for him though.”
Arsenal result should worry Newcastle
The worrying thing for Newcastle, and there were many, was that Howe had made the big changes, he’d dropped Dan Burn and started Alexander Isak as many had hoped, and yet it was one of the most pathetic showings of the season.
Of course there are still players to return as Joelinton and Sandro Tonali in particular were big misses and Joe Willock could only come off the bench, but you’d still expect more from the team that started the game.
In their last meeting at the Emirates Newcastle had put out a similar line-up who had shown a lot of resilience and determination to get a result, something they were sorely missing in last night’s game.
The hope would be that this is a one-off and that Newcastle can get back to winning ways in the next game, but these defensive performances have been going on for too long to consider it a blip in form.
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