Chris Waugh has revealed an interesting thing he noticed from the press box on Sunday during Newcastle United’s last match on the latest episode of Pod on the Tyne.
The Magpies travelled down to the capital last Sunday and were loving every single minute of it when Fabian Schar’s free-kick put them ahead, but that enjoyment didn’t last long as they ended up being demolished 5-1.
Will Newcastle beat Wolves?
Yes!
No!
Eddie Howe clearly recognised that it was a case of damage limitation in the second half when he hooked off his only striker on the pitch, Chris Wood, for centre-back Jamaal Lascelles and went to a back five – and it wasn’t only Howe who’d accepted defeat in the second half.
Waugh has revealed what he heard and saw from Graeme Jones in the press box during the defeat.
He said: “It was interesting because actually where we were sat in the press box, Graeme Jones was just behind us, and all the way through the first half, he’s talking constantly, and not critical of the team.
“He’s talking about what’s going on during the game and he’s sort of saying, ‘oh, Ryan Fraser needs to cover back there’ or ‘Jonjo needs to do this’. Second half, he just basically stopped talking. I think it had just gone so badly, there was so much going wrong.”
TIF Thoughts on Newcastle’s acceptance of the defeat…
While Newcastle fans will have become accustomed to losing a lot of games over the last decade, they just demand a team that tries as Wor Flags, the Newcastle fans who organise all displays inside St James’ Park, claimed. And that didn’t appear to be the case on Sunday, registering just one shot on target and players only touching the ball 490 times, showing that they were seemingly unwilling to attack their opposition.
Luckily for Newcastle, though, they have their first home game since 5th March this week against Wolves, which could be seen as a pivotal game, with a win moving them 10 points clear of the drop and would likely all but secure their Premier League status for another season.
In other news: Unexpected twist: Newcastle now ‘more likely’ to secure major in-house agreement – journalist