1 day Ago By The Guardian
Eddie Howe has challenged his Newcastle players to prove they are not merely a cup team by overcoming their sometimes self-destructive inconsistency and qualifying for the Champions League. Howe’s side have always been capable of beating anyone on their day – highlighted as they overcame Liverpool at Wembley to lift the Carabao Cup last month – but their capacity for off days threatens the club’s ambition of the top-five finish that would almost certainly secure admission to Europe’s showpiece competition. Asked whether inconsistency represented his team’s achilles heel, Howe said: “I can’t argue with that.
That is the big question mark against us and I include myself in that. The big question now is can we be the team that we were against Liverpool? You can’t be there every game but you can still reach a standard and win. We have to find a way to win games when we’re not at our best.
” Related: Are some clubs cursed? The narrative can be as powerful as the truth Newcastle’s manager is preparing for Wednesday night’s Premier League match with Brentford at St James’ Park harbouring a degree of uncertainty as to how his players will respond to winning the club’s first domestic trophy since 1955. After a trip to Dubai as much about rest and relaxation as warm-weather training, and Saturday’s celebrations in front of more than 300,000 fans on Tyneside, Howe’s rival managers will doubtless be hoping to see Newcastle struggle to regain concentration. “We need to put what happened against Liverpool to the back of our minds and focus on the future,” said Howe, who expects his 33-year-old right-sided centre-half Fabian Schär to sign a new contract “imminently” rather than leave Tyneside as a free agent this summer.
“We’ve got 10 games left, 10 great opportunities to turn our season into a really memorable one. Against Liverpool we were outstanding and that level is what we’ll now be measured against.” After watching Newcastle lose three of their past five home games across all competitions, Howe knows he cannot afford to relax, particularly when the Saudi Arabian owners are anxious to see Champions League qualification achieved.
“Our home form has been a bit scratchy in recent weeks and we’ve had a couple of painful defeats,” said Howe, whose team went into this week’s midweek fixtures one point behind fifth-placed Manchester City. “The challenge never stops, it gets greater. We need to be ready for the test to come.
“There’s no doubting the power of Champions League football. It could be game-changing for us in terms of revenue. Qualifying is going to be very, very difficult .
.. It’s going to come down to who is the most consistent.
” He added that psychology will play as a big a part as tactics. “Psychology is a huge thing,” said Howe. “There will be a confidence lift after Liverpool but you have to be careful it doesn’t turn into a negative.
We have to guard against that. This is a key moment in our season and it’s how we react. We need to galvanise ourselves and ride the huge wave of [post-Wembley] positivity.
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