- 7 hours ago
Newcastle are 14th in the Premier League and putting in some of the worst performance we've ever seen under Eddie Howe. So what's the problem? Is it the manager? The players? Or both? Adam Clery looks at their recent poor run to explain why they look a shadow of themselves at present.
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00:00When Eddie Howe arrived at Newcastle United he adopted the mantra
00:03intensity is our identity and ever since then Newcastle have thrived on a system built on
00:10coordinated pressing and physically outworking their opponents. This season though they're
00:15sitting quite deservedly 14th they're only two points above the relegation zone and in terms of
00:21the percentage of the jewels they are winning the least physically imposing team in the Premier
00:27League. So hello everybody I'm Adam Cleary welcome to the Adam Cleary Football Channel and this
00:32is what's going wrong with Eddie Howe's Newcastle.
00:38And just really quick before we start a reminder we are up for best social media
00:42at the Football Supporters Association Awards. Still no idea how that happened and obviously
00:48we're not going to win that but if you think the idea of us doing a Leicester would be really
00:53funny
00:53or you just like the channel I don't know the link is in the description and I will appreciate
00:57you voting enormously. Anyway all right so this is the most requested video I've had in uh forever
01:03Newcastle start the season relatively brightly given the disruptive summer but across three away games
01:09that they will definitely have regarded as winnable they created a grand total of two clear-cut chances
01:16while giving up seven and were second best by a distance in the game's physical jewels. They were
01:23not unlucky in any of those games and the performances were some of the most un-Eddie Howe's Newcastle
01:30United we've ever seen. I've already shown you them being bottom for ground jewels in the entire division
01:35but even in just the simple things like running and this was tweeted by Photovision's Andy Forrester the
01:42other day so thanks for that. They've gone from outworking their opponents in 53% of games last
01:49season down to just 27% in this which is quite drastic. Worse still no team in the Premier League
01:58has pressed the opposition more than Newcastle United and yet no team in the Premier League has
02:04won the ball in the final third less than Newcastle United. That is an astonishing contrast but whether
02:11you're looking at the numbers or just literally watching them lately something is fundamentally
02:17wrong with the way this team is playing its football. So what we're going to show you today
02:22is what it is they are doing how that differs from previous seasons and why it's suddenly so ineffective.
02:30But the very first thing to keep in mind about all of this right is that for a little while
02:34now I would
02:35say maybe since the start of last season Newcastle have desperately wanted to be better in possession.
02:43They want to control games more than they used to. They want to keep that intensity yes but they also
02:49want to conserve their energy to be intense at the right moments. Which don't get me wrong is a smart
02:56decision it's the way this team does need to evolve but if you're doing that and your running stats are
03:04drastically down you are the most bullied team in the league you are the worst at winning it back
03:09high up despite trying to do that the most and you're losing all these winnable games I would argue
03:15me personally that being more controlled in possession does not work for you or rather if you
03:22look across the 11 it isn't working. If you want to progress the ball out in a controlled way then
03:28doing
03:29it without Tino Livramento's surging runs to take presses away and without Lewis Hall's ability in
03:35tight areas is considerably harder to do. And this isn't me digging out Dan Byrne or Kieran Trippier by
03:42the way I think they're doing their best in the circumstances but they are very different players
03:47to Hall and Livramento. And I'll show you an example here of why that matters right because if you are
03:52pressing Newcastle and you want to unsettle them you know that Kieran Trippier is not going to fly
03:57past you beat you in a 1v1 and you know Dan Byrne is not going to break your lines of
04:03pressure with
04:04either a really nice pass or just dribbling through you. So Newcastle will try and avoid giving them
04:09both the ball in really difficult moments and thus are now entirely reliant on either Tonali or Bruno
04:16getting the ball centrally and progressing it through the middle. And as a result we're seeing those two get
04:21robbed of the ball in the middle of the pitch a lot more than we're used to because the opposition
04:26know
04:26that Newcastle's options are limited and are there waiting for them. Like this is from the Brentford game
04:32right first off they move it up the left hand side not overly quickly it's not one long ball but
04:37it is still
04:38pretty direct. They've dragged everybody over to this side they work it out into the middle and if Tino
04:43Livramento is playing in this game you look at this still image and tell me where you think he would
04:50be
04:50stood at this exact moment. I guarantee you he's about here somewhere not out of shot. Bruno even looks
04:59over there as soon as he gets it and just no nothing no option down that side when they got
05:05forward this
05:05quickly and Murphy he's had to make the run centrally because they used Volta Mata to get the ball up
05:11the
05:11pitch. And likewise there is the other side of this problem. Botman does not really want to give this to
05:17burn under pressure because that's not the sort of player he is so fair enough and they move it
05:22back into the middle which is exactly what Brentford want them to do. Again you look at Tonali's options
05:28here and I'd say if Livramento was on the pitch he would be stood here. If Lewis Hall had been
05:33on the
05:34pitch Botman would have probably given it to him in the first place but they have no way of getting
05:39out
05:39of the press wide so he has to play a blind pass centrally in the hope that Volta Mata will
05:46just
05:46get it. Which obviously doesn't because Brentford dive all over that and suddenly they are 4v4 on the
05:53edge of the box. So that's one problem obviously but there's also the increasingly obvious issue
05:58that Nick Volta Mata lacks the energy required to lead a press the way Newcastle want to press. And I've
06:05seen
06:05people saying that he's bad at it but he's not. The numbers this season actually show he's intercepting
06:11the ball well, he's getting his foot in, he's doing everything he can but Newcastle's off the ball shape
06:17makes it really hard for him. Like it's usually this really flat 4-5-1 meaning he has to cover
06:24the entire
06:25width of the pitch left to right and he just isn't really quick enough to do that effectively.
06:31So I see most teams defend in a 4-4-2 so you've got two players to cover all of
06:36this space but if
06:37you've only got one you need someone who is absolutely rapid in this position. So yeah just
06:42to give you a small ray of hope here I do think things immediately improve a bit when you start
06:49getting Lewis Hall back in, when you've got Liveramento back in, maybe if you get Wisser in
06:52to make the pressing a little bit better. However all of these problems and Anthony Gordon's drop in
06:59form and Anthony Alanga struggling to get going and Joe Linton's really noticeable drop-off, all of
07:06these are symptoms of the actual problem not the actual problem. And that problem when you look at
07:14this team and the way it plays takes me right back to the thing I said at the very start
07:18of the video
07:19right, it's all about the intensity of the way they play. It's simultaneously become this team's
07:27biggest strength and also its greatest weakness. At its best you remember exactly how it looked over
07:32the last few seasons, they would hound teams in their own half, bully them off the ball, force
07:38turnovers at the top of the pitch and make it a nightmare to try and play through them. And it
07:43made
07:43them, quite deservedly in my opinion, seen as like not the best team in the Premier League,
07:49God, nowhere near, but probably the hardest to actually play against. But as a result of the
07:56harsh lessons they learned two years ago as a result of trying to play this way three times a week
08:01rather than just one, Eddie Howe has set out to make them better in possession too, make them more
08:09able to control games. Like they're still at their best when they do play this way, like for over an
08:14hour they blew away Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final, Arsenal had no idea what had hit them in
08:21the semis and you even saw it early on in that Barcelona game. But the reality is you can't just
08:27keep doing the same thing every game. And even if you could, you can't do this every game when you're
08:34a small squad playing in four competitions. So what Eddie Howe wants is to be more controlled in the
08:40games where they are the better team, but still have that explosiveness in the tank ready for the
08:46moments or just the games where you really need it. So that then begs the question why, given they're
08:52trying to pick their moments, are they bottom of the league for contesting duels and visibly unable
08:58to dominate games when you watch them now? And it's the exact same reason why they keep getting this
09:04accusation of taking the lead and just sitting back or taking their foot off the pedal. And that is
09:10because physically speaking, the rest of the Premier League has caught up with Newcastle. The entire
09:18sport over the last few seasons has been trending in a taller, stronger, faster direction. Teams want to
09:23press, they want to transition from front to back, they want to contest set pieces in both boxes. And to
09:29do
09:29this effectively, you need players of a different physical profile than you did even just a couple
09:35of years ago. So in this short space of time, the Premier League has become more intense and more
09:42robust, which is like why those European games seem so much easier for them. Like those physical levels
09:49are distinctly lower, even when you're playing against a team who can still match you technically.
09:55Like not to use the L word here, but Liverpool are having a massive issue with Florian Wirtz this
09:59season, and it largely stems from him struggling with the physical step up into the league. He is
10:05constantly expecting contact when he's on the ball, so he's releasing passes far too early because he
10:11just doesn't trust himself to hang on to the ball. And that would obviously still have been an issue
10:16like three seasons ago, but not to this extent. Now what I want you to do here, right, is look
10:21at this
10:22starting XI for Newcastle United. Now I would argue that this is the most physically intense
10:27team, either in terms of like strength or just running power, right, that they could have fielded
10:31at the start of the season two years ago. But then you go from that, right, to this, which is
10:37their
10:37most used XI this season. And I don't think that team is more physical than the team from two years
10:46ago. In fact, probably it's less, while the league is definitely more. When they need to come out and
10:54be physical, they're finding that most teams now can quite easily match them for that. Thus, when they
11:00go a goal up and the opposition raise their levels to try and get back into it, they tend not
11:06to have
11:06an answer. Like, they're not sitting back, they're getting pushed back. They've already dropped more
11:12points from winning positions than any other team in the league this season and more than they did
11:18in the entirety of the last one. Like, the way Newcastle used to win games was they would score
11:23a goal and then when the opposition came at them, they would up their levels and then go and get
11:28another one or three. Like, this is all the games they won last season, all 20 of them, right?
11:34Look at all the worn nils. There's one against Southampton when they were down to 10 men, so
11:39obviously there's one against Arsenal, which again, obviously, and then the solitary actually
11:44grind out a result result is away to West Ham. That's it. And I mentioned them earlier, but the
11:50cup final and both the semis, Newcastle take on two of the best teams in the country. They take the
11:58lead
11:58and then they assert themselves physically to go and get a second goal. But this season, they take the
12:05lead against Arsenal and they wilted because that Arsenal side now has Jokeres and Zubamendi and
12:10Calafiore and Jurian Timber and not, as they played last season, Havertz and Chorginho and Miles Lewis-Skelly.
12:18And those are the sort of changes that the rest of the division has made as well. And just to,
12:23like,
12:23bring this all into one point, right? This inability to be physically dominant means it's now absolutely
12:29vital for them to be better in possession and able to control games. But if you rank all the league
12:35games this season by the amount of the ball they've had, they've only won one of their five
12:41highest possession games. Which means they're just not a great possession team. Like, the Hall and
12:47Livramento injuries, yes, they play a part in that. They've only started, I think, one game together all
12:52season and that was the game where we rested Bruno. So we've literally never seen a full-strength Newcastle
12:58this season. And when we come back, things will be better, but I don't necessarily know if they'll
13:02be fixed. So naturally, you've got people asking, well, what does Eddie Howe need to do to fix this?
13:09And he knows exactly what he's got to do because he's been trying to do it for the last, like,
13:1518
13:16months. He's got to make them better in possession and less reliant on that intensity. But it's proving to
13:22be very difficult for him. It's not really working. So the question then follows,
13:28is his position under threat? And I would say it depends. How much do you realistically expect a
13:37manager to do with a starting XI that has not been drastically upgraded in three seasons? Like,
13:44the only major change to Newcastle United's starting XI, right, has been Voltemada for
13:50ISAC. And that was not some clever bit of strategy from the board that was thrust upon them. Like,
13:54I think Newcastle have bought really well over the last few years, but all the players are basically
14:00floor raisers. They're players who ensure that if you do have a massive injury crisis,
14:04like you did two years ago, the overall standard of the team shouldn't drop that much. But never
14:09mind the floor, right? He was the last player they signed to immediately raise the ceiling.
14:15Who represented an immediate increase to the on-pitch quality of this team?
14:23Tonali, probably, in 2023? If you stand still for this long in football, you do just go backwards.
14:32And if you look at the league table, that is what we are seeing right now. Now, if you're looking
14:37for
14:37a personal take on all this, I do think that Eddie Howe will turn this around. Like,
14:42not quite as drastically as he did two years ago, where dropping out of Europe saw them go from like
14:4811th pretty much back into the European places because, well, first off, they're going to be
14:53in Europe for longer, but mostly because they're just not quite as impactful a team. But mostly,
14:57I do just think that Hall and Liveramento coming back in will really help with the possession,
15:01so you can be better at picking when intensity is your identity. And that will really help.
15:08And, um, can I just say, really quickly, right, Eddie Howe, in all competitions, has won
15:15six of his last ten games, and they are flying in Europe. They're almost certainly going to be in
15:20another Carabao Cup semi-final.
15:22Am I a joke to you?
15:24So, I watched those three away games. You're right, they were absolutely minging, so I understand
15:30everybody's concern. But I think let's keep the questions where they need to be, which is,
15:36what the hell is going wrong here, and not in the insane place, which is, should we fire
15:42him out of a cannon into the sun. But hey, that's just my opinion, isn't it? I would dearly
15:47like to know yours, so please do let us know what you think's going wrong, and should they
15:50stick with Eddie Howe in the comments down below. I do genuinely quite enjoy sitting there
15:55and reading them all, because I've got very little else to do with this life. Anyway, subscribe
15:59to us here at the ACFC Adam Cleary football channel. That's what it's called, if you haven't
16:04already, and you can get me across all the social medias, at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
16:09And little reminder, we are voting closed on Friday. I think we are up for best social
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16:25That's it. That's it. That's it. I think they'll be fine. I think he will turn this
16:29round to an extent, but I do think, yeah, I agree with Jamie Carragher. The boards let
16:35him down, or however he sounds. Yeah, bye.
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