Joe Cole seriously disagrees with ‘lazy’ thing people are saying about Newcastle now

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At some point, the drama surrounding Newcastle United’s win over West Ham will simmer down.

It was certainly one of the most dramatic afternoons St James’ Park has seen in a while as Newcastle edged a real thriller in the Premier League.

While its only natural that fans would revel in the two late goals that secured a 4-3 win over the Hammers, there will be negatives Eddie Howe will have to consider.

Indeed, the defensive frailties to have undermined Newcastle all season remained on show, as did one of the other big problems to have emerged.

Injuries.

All of Miguel Almiron, Tino Livramento and Jamaal Lascelles were forced off during the game, potentially adding to the injury list.

Sven Botman recently became another high-profile casualty on that front, of course. Callum Wilson, Nick Pope, Matt Targett, Joelinton, Lewis Miley and Kieran Trippier are also all out.

The sheer number of injuries Howe has had to deal with this season is staggering and the sight of three more players going down on Saturday led TNT Sports commentator Darren Fletcher to ask pundit Joe Cole if he’d ever seen anything like it.

Cole, however, had a more nuanced view and suggested it wasn’t just a case of bad luck, as Fletcher was referring to.

Joe Cole doesn’t think Newcastle’s injuries are purely down to bad luck

The former England star replied on broadcast: “Listen, I’ve played in teams with an injury crisis, this is a little bit more than what I’ve seen. What I would say is that it’s never really bad luck.

“There can a be a little bit of a luck element to it but it’s always to do with, you know, how the training is, the methodology, you know, over-training players, under-training players.

“There’s an art to it and the problem at football clubs is you get lots of people from sports science backgrounds, strength and conditioning and they’ve all got opinions.

“It’s almost too many chefs spoil the broth. Players are going down left, right and centre, I think it’s lazy to call it bad luck.

“For players like Almiron to come on and pull a hamstring after twenty minutes, I’ve been in that situation. It means you’re not primed and right to be playing because you’ve either done too much in the gym, too much on the pitch.

“We need to do better as football clubs at protecting players. No one in this stadium wants to see any these players go down injured. It’s ruining the spectacle of the game.”

Newcastle’s injury crisis needs investigating

The injuries to Lascelles and Livramento looked to have been impact-related, so they can hardly be blamed on anything the club are doing behind the scenes.

Still, it’s difficult to ignore how often this keeps happening. When you hear about Botman avoiding having surgery despite advice from the club’s medical staff, something looks wrong.

Would that seriously happen at another top club? It’s impossible to say but seems doubtful.

Cole is right, bad luck only extends so far. That’s not to deny Newcastle have endured some of it this season but it’s important to try and control what they can.

Should the problems persist next season, it’s going to be even harder to blame something as abstract as luck.