Newcastle United suffered their heaviest defeat in almost three years as they were beaten 4-0 at Manchester City on Saturday afternoon.

Omar Marmoush scored a 15-minute hat-trick in the first half before substitute James McAtee wrapped up the win late on for Man City. It was Newcastle’s heaviest defeat since a 5-0 loss at the Etihad Stadium back in May 2022.

The loss sees Newcastle drop to seventh in the Premier League table, missing the opportunity to move up to fourth. The match saw Eddie Howe make two changes to his side from the previous Premier League match with Joe Willock and Kieran Trippier starting.

But neither player came out for the second half as Howe opted to make a double change with Lewis Miley and Tino Livramento coming on in their place. Howe later brought off Anthony Gordon, Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak in the second half.

When asked the reason behind the substitutions and whether any change was injury-related, Howe simply said: “No.”

Elaborating on his side’s performance, the Newcastle head coach commented: “It was painful to watch from the sideline [in the first half].

“We were a yard off where we needed to be, we seemed to be reactive.We allowed their good technical players too much space. Now, they do have outstanding players, and as I said, they're still for me. I know a lot's been made of their run, but still for me, with the ball, they're the best team in the Premier League.

We're disappointed, very disappointed with our general performance today. I expected us to be really competitive today.

“Just starting off the ball, in terms of trying to deliver a really competitive, energetic performance, it wasn't there.Then the duels, we were off on our duels, so then it becomes very difficult because they're still the best team in the Premier League, maybe the world still in the build-up phase.

“With the ball, I think they're still a very, very difficult team to play against. They then can keep the ball for long periods of time, so it can become a difficult mix if you don't get that first part right, and we didn't today, and sadly that led to a disappointing performance.”

After back-to-back cup wins, Newcastle have now lost three of their last four matches in the Premier League and now look to bounce back against Champions League chasing Nottingham Forest at St James’ Park next Sunday.

"We can't look for excuses, there are a load of reasons we could look at, but the players should have been fresh and ready to perform, they didn't,” Howe added.

"We've got some tough games, the fixture list will test us. We have to dust ourselves off for next week."