We have to kick this one off with Ruben Neves’ post-match interview with Sky Sports.
Clearly, Neves was a bit upset with throwing away the lead so late on, so you can cut him a bit of slack for his hyperbole, but if these were his genuine thoughts I wonder if he knows which game he was being asked about. Speaking about how Newcastle play, Neves said “Their style of play is like that, just long balls and second balls” going on to say “They’re not a team that wants to have possession much”. Ruben, mate, Newcastle had over 63% of the possession.
Not a team who likes to keep possession?
Neves was also not happy with the referee, and to be honest, I don’t think either side had any reason to be overly chuffed with his performance, but Schar earned himself a yellow card for a mistimed challenge on Pedro Neto which Neves saw a little differently: “In the end, it’s little details, like the detail when Neto nearly broke his leg and the ref didn’t go to the screen”.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Eddie Howe said he had “mixed emotions” at full time after a poor first half saying “I felt we could have imposed ourselves more in the match” going on to say “But then very pleased with the second half, we penned them in and I thought we chased the game really well and we had a number of chances. Arguably we should have won the game, really.”
Meanwhile, Allan Saint-Maximin spoke to NUFC TV to say “I practice that a lot in training that’s why I stay on the edge during set plays, I take my chance because I know I’m capable of scoring from there”, Maxi was then asked about Newcastle’s attack where he admitted there are still things to work on, “We just need to make a better choice in the final third. Today we didn’t really follow the plan of the manager as a team”.
Reading between the lines of Howe and Maxi’s interviews, I think it’s safe to say that the players got fairly reamed by the gaffer at half time, but whatever he said to them clearly worked as they came out for the second half with fire in their eyes.