Eddie Howe shares what he told his Newcastle United players at half-time against Arsenal

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Eddie Howe was left bitterly disappointed with Newcastle United’s first-half display against Arsenal on Saturday evening.

Newcastle had began the game on the backfoot and never really got going as they fell to their 15th defeat of the season and yet another disappointing display at the Emirates.

Speaking to ChronicleLive, Howe shared what it was he told his team at half-time as they looked to make big improvements in the second half, but Arsenal’s quality proved to be too much for them to handle.

Howe disappointed with Newcastle’s display vs Arsenal

It’s safe to say that Newcastle were not at their very best as they faced a tough Arsenal side who are still dreaming of winning the Premier League this season.

But they haven’t been at their best for some time now and it’s starting to become a real concern for Newcastle supporters who didn’t have huge expectations for this season but at least had hoped for a resurgence in the second half of the campaign.

Against Arsenal, it wasn’t just a lack of quality that was obvious in the game, it almost felt as if there was a lack of effort particularly in the midfield which lacks a lot of pace and energy.

Howe would never single players out for bad performances but having Sean Longstaff and Lewis Miley playing next to each other does not look like a viable option for the future.

The head coach had hoped to give his side a boost with some strong words at half time, but it was Arsenal’s third goal which looked to wrap up the result.

On what he said to his team, Howe said: “Yes [harsh words], in a sense I let them know what I thought but you have to help the team improve. There was a mixture of blunt honesty on how are we going to play in the second half and how are we going to improve.

“It was much improved, much better and we were the dominant team creating chances. If we’d got that goal it may have been different but the third goal took the wind out of our sails.”

Newcastle given a reality check this season

After what seemed to be an almost perfect 18 months since Howe came in as manager where they reached a cup final and qualified for the Champions League, Newcastle are now going through a very tricky period.

A mixture of injuries, an increased number of games and just some bad luck has resulted in the team slipping down the Premier League table, but even that doesn’t excuse what happened on Saturday night.

It now looks like Europe is slipping away from them and the best they could hope for is now the Conference League, but other than that they really need to focus on what will be a huge summer to propel them for next season.