"That was painful" - Howe reacts to Fulham defeat and reveals new knee injury

Eddie Howe has expressed his disappointment after Newcastle suffered back-to-back home defeats in the Premier League.

The Magpies saw Fulham complete a second half comeback courtesy of goals from Jimenez and Muniz, after Jacob Murphy opened the scores midway through the first half.

With the crucial Carabao Cup semi-final second leg against Arsenal coming up, Howe and his side will need to rapidly improve upon today’s performance if they want to progress to the final on Wednesday night.

“We deserved to lose”

Speaking after the game, Howe seemed surprised about the standard of performance the Mags produced on Saturday afternoon.

“I don't think we were great athletically again today, which is really surprising because we had a really good training week", Howe said. "We were wasteful today. I don't think it was anywhere near our best technical level."

“We deserved to lose the game." A damning indictment after Newcastle’s exceptional recent run of form abruptly stopped once again, just like against Bournemouth just a fortnight ago.

Comparisons drawn to Bournemouth defeat

Excluding today’s loss against Liverpool, Bournemouth were one of the form teams on the planet when Newcastle fell to a 1-4 defeat against the Cherries.

And still, Howe’s words would indicate that his team have failed to learn from that performance, admitting it was "painful" to watch as we struggled both on and off the ball.

“There were similarities to Bournemouth and that was painful. We weren’t great athletically and on the ball we were wasteful. Put that together and it’s not a recipe for a great performance.”

"It's the second home game in a row where we haven't performed and that's a huge frustration for us. That's two back-to-back games where we've been nowhere near ourselves.”

Joelinton and Wilson face fitness race before Arsenal

One of the key talking points following on from today’s game was the lack of attacking options on the bench, following on from Almiron’s departure midweek and the absence of both Wilson and Barnes.

Regarding Wilson, Howe revealed post-match that the England international could feature against Arsenal.

”Callum will be there or thereabouts. He has trained a couple of times and looked good. I will speak to everyone connected with Callum about his welfare and make sure we involve him at the right time."

Joelinton meanwhile abruptly came off with a knee  injury, and now faces a race against time to be fit for a physical contest against the Gunners.

On his situation, Howe added: “Joelinton was suffering with a knee injury which was a shame. He was clearly struggling with it."

Lessons to learn

Wednesday night will be one of the defining matches of Howe’s tenure: avoid defeat and he will be afforded the opportunity to once again bring silverware back to the club in the Carabao Cup final.

Repeat the Fulham performance however, or even worse, the Bournemouth performance, and the club will rue it as a monumental missed opportunity.