Eddie Howe admits Newcastle United ‘need to be better’ after Aston Villa draw

Newcastle trailed 2-0 after 11-minutes after goals from Ollie Watkins and Emi Buendia put Villa in a commanding early position. Elliot Anderson pulled a goal back for The Magpies midway through the first half, his second in three pre-season matches before he helped set-up Alexander Isak to draw Eddie Howe’s side level on the stroke of half-time.

Buendia quickly restored Villa’s advantage after the break only for substitute Callum Wilson to respond quickly and draw Newcastle level once again. There were no further goals in the match as it ended 3-3 and continued the Premier League Summer Series’ entertaining start.

And there were mixed feelings for Howe at the full-time whistle.

“Yeah a mixture of things really, some not so good,” admitted the United head coach. “Defensively we needed work after that but there was some good stuff, some good attacking play and I thought a draw was probably fair and it was a really good spectacle for the supporters.”

The match saw Newcastle make wholesale changes at half-time and shortly afterwards with 20 players involved, including new signing Harvey Barnes.

Howe didn’t go into the dressing room at half-time, instead staying out on the pitch with his players about to be introduced.

“The lads needed some fitness work and a lot of lads that were coming on were warming up so it was a case of giving them some last minute information,” Howe said. “With all the players out there was no point me being stuck in the dressing room.

“The plan was for 45 minutes for all our players then we’ll step that up in our next game where we’ll play slightly longer,” Howe added. “We’re still at that stage with the internationals coming back slightly later that’s physically what we’re quite limited to at the moment but we’re looking to build that the next few games.

“We’re probably where we expected to be but you always want more. I’m always looking at [things] very critically and go ‘we need to be better’ for when we play Aston Villa in the first league game.

“But I have to praise the players as well to come back from 2-0 down and draw the game because at that moment it looked difficult for us. Full credit to the players.

“We don’t want to put ourselves in that position [at 2-0 down] but we remained calm. It’s very easy to lose our way in that game, but didn’t, we stuck to our beliefs and we got rewarded for that.”

Newcastle United: Martin Dúbravka - 5; Kieran Trippier - 5, Fabian Schär - 5 (Jamaal Lascelles 46 - 8), Paul Dummett - 5 (Sven Botman 46 - 6), Matt Targett - 5 (Harvey Barnes 70 - 6); Bruno Guimarães - 5 (Matt Ritchie 46 - 6), Sandro Tonali - 4 (Joelinton 46 - 6), Elliot Anderson - 8 (Dan Burn 46 - 6); Miguel Almirón - 5 (Anthony Gordon 46 - 7), Alexander Isak - 6 (Callum Wilson 46 - 6), Jacob Murphy - 6 (Lewis Miley 46 - 7).

Unused substitutes: Loris Karius, Karl Darlow, Harrison Ashby, Jay Turner-Cooke, Ben Parkinson.