Newcastle United made it back-to-back wins on Tuesday night as they beat Rangers 2-1 at Ibrox. However, Eddie Howe was not fully convinced by the performance.
It was a late Harrison Ashby header that gave Newcastle the win, despite being on the backfoot for large parts of the second half. The raft of substitutions turned the tide and it was Rangers who had the best of the closing stages.
But the first half was promising for Newcastle. Miguel Almiron scored a lovely goal, while Sandro Tonali showed genuine signs of excellence during his first display in a Toon shirt.
Howe was happy with what he saw from the 23-year-old, as were supporters.
While the first half was largely impressive from the Magpies, the Newcastle boss has since admitted that he was not totally satisfied with his team’s performance.
Eddie Howe unhappy with Newcastle giving the ball away
After the game, Howe spoke to NUFC TV and gave his immediate thoughts on his side’s performance.
“I thought this was a really good test,” he said.
“Rangers did very well towards the back end of last season. They play an attractive brand of football. Tactically they’re an interesting team so we had to try and get to grips with them. I thought once we did we dominated the game.
“There was a little spell between 30 and 40 minutes where I was a little bit unhappy with the amount of times we turned the ball over.
“We probably didn’t hurt them enough in the final third but we haven’t really started that work yet, training time has been quite limited so far.”
Room for improvement from the Magpies
Howe’s assessment of the game just shows how meticulous he is and how much he is striving for perfection.
Newcastle were not as crisp in possession during the latter stages of the first half, having started the game in such an assured manner.
That is something the Toon boss will work on, but there is no cause for concern given how early it is in pre-season.
As Howe says, training has been limited and that showed at times. Our attacking output was limited, with the players failing to create many clear cut chances. But the ones we did create we converted, with Almiron and Ashby finding the net at Ibrox.
But it was a good test for Newcastle, up against a side that could be in next season’s Champions League. We dominated for large parts of the first half, which was good to see in what was our first major test of pre-season.
While the Gateshead game was a good warm up, this was the first time our big hitters have featured. They came through the game unscathed, and ensured it is now two wins from two this summer.
As always with Howe, he was not fully satisfied, but that is a good thing – it will only push the players to do even better.
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