Eddie Howe's £134m Newcastle United decision backfires amid double injury blow

As Newcastle trailed 2-0 to The Hammers at St James’ Park, Howe used his maximum allocation of five substitutions in the match. Harvey Barnes came on at half-time for Joe Willock in a change that was forced due injury while Callum Wilson, Jacob Murphy and Sandro Tonali were introduced in place of Anthony Gordon Joelinton, Sean Longstaff.

Kieran Trippier then came on for the closing stages after Bruno Guimaraes picked up a knock.

The injection of £134million of talent from the bench ultimately had an adverse impact on Newcastle’s performance as West Ham were able to sit back and see out the win without the hosts registering a shot on target in the second half.

When asked if his substitutions negatively impacted his side’s performance, Howe told The Gazette: “Yeah definitely and it’s been unlike us because our substitutes have had a really positive impact on the group and that wasn’t the case.

“I really didn’t like us in the last half an hour, that leaves sort of a negative feeling for me because the majority of the early exchanges and first 60 minutes was very good.

“Of course, the players that then enter the pitch to justify them playing in the next game they’ve got to do well and I felt we maybe didn’t do that.

“I’m always very honest with the players, I don’t hide my feelings even if it is immediately after the game. I think they’ll have a good idea of how I feel. There was a frustration about the last half an hour so I’m not hiding anything.”

Next up for Newcastle is a trip to Crystal Palace on Saturday (3pm kick-off) with Howe expected to make changes for the match. Dan Burn will return from suspension while Guimaraes and Willock are both injury doubts.

Defeat on Monday meant Newcastle dropped to 10th in the table and missed out on the opportunity to move into the top six with just under a third of the season played.

“Yeah, massive because the league is so tight,” Howe said on the missed opportunity. “A couple of wins and the whole picture looks very different. We’ll kick ourselves because we knew the opportunity we had a home game on a Monday night and a great moment for us potentially in our season. We have to learn from that and come back stronger.”