Five things learned as brittle Newcastle United get worse in nightmare pre-season

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Newcastle United remain winless this summer as pre-season took a fresh turn for the worse on Wednesday.

Newcastle lost 1-0 to Team K-League in Suwon, with Eddie Howe’s side again putting in a dreadful performance.

Pre-season has been difficult for Newcastle. They are without their best player in Alexander Isak as he pushes to leave, and haven’t won any of their three games thus far.

While Sunday’s defeat against Arsenal in Singapore did offer reasons to be positive, Newcastle were dreadful on Wednesday.

Here are five things we learned, with all the usual caveats about it being unwise to read too much into pre-season games applied.

• READ MORE: Newcastle United fans are in utter disbelief after ‘painful’ performance vs Team K League

Brittle Newcastle United are too easy to play against

Howe was critical of Newcastle’s defending against Arsenal and it’s hard to imagine the manager being too pleased with what he saw on Wednesday.

Even before Jin-gyu Kim scored the opening goal towards the end of the first half, the team had been carved open far too many times.

While the hot and humid conditions didn’t make it easy, the Newcastle United manager saw his team robbed of the ball in some dangerous areas and duly exposed defensively.

At their best, Newcastle are a horrible team to play against. Little about that was on show here, even if pre-season games do not always provide an accurate reflection of what’s to come.

William Osula frustration continues

There were some nice touches for William Osula, who currently looks to be the only senior striker absolutely guaranteed to play for Newcastle United in the 2025/26 season.

Still, he’s not perfect. In the second-half, he controlled the ball nicely and dragged his defender out of position. Osula, however, then overhit what looked like a simple ball to the onrushing Anthony Elanga to the point where it went out of play.

Newcastle rate Osula highly behind the scenes and the hope is that he will develop into a Premier League-level forward.  

That may happen some day, but it looks a long way off.

Park Seung-soo delights the crowd

Summer signing Park Seung-soo made his debut and looked Newcastle’s brightest spark.

The South Korean forward naturally got a huge reception from both sets of supporters, and for very good reason.

• READ MORE: Newcastle United fans finally have something to smile about after ‘phenomenal’ Park Seung-soo debut

Park finally provided some attacking invention for Newcastle. He ran at defenders, showed some fancy footwork and was unlucky not to have scored following a fine ball from Anthony Gordon.

Finally, something to smile about…

Newcastle United could be forced into transfer U-turn

A midfield signing isn’t a priority for Newcastle this summer even after the departure of Sean Longstaff.

Now, however, it may need to be. Joe Willock may not be the most convincing option these days but does at least provide an experienced body to the Newcastle United squad. 

Sadly, he came off the wrong end of a 50-50 challenge and had to be stretchered off just before the full-time whistle. 

Any injury, even if not a serious one, could see Newcastle head into the Premier League season with only four central midfielders to cover what are usually three starting positions. 

Newcastle United find another new goalkeeper – and it’s not Aaron Ramsdale

If there’s only one thing you can rely on from Newcastle United right now, it’s that they will find a new goalkeeping option to deploy unless his name is James Trafford.

Despite having several ‘keepers already on the books, Newcastle are set to sign Aaron Ramsdale after missing out on Trafford, who joined Manchester City from Burnley.

Howe opted to bring young shot-stopper Max Thompson – son of Newcastle kit-man Ray – on for his debut in the second half.

A nice moment for the Thompson family and perhaps the 20-year-old will go onto great things, but another indication as to how strangely the squad is stacked right now.

They have an abundance of goalkeepers, three right-backs, four central midfielders and one senior central striker. A very strange set-up, even if there’s a chance that things can change heading into the final stages of the summer window.