MusaNewcastle United narrowly beat Burnley 2-1 at St James’ Park.
It was a tense finish for Newcastle United as they recorded a narrow 2-1 victory over Burnley at St James’ Park.
The Magpies went into half-time cruising with Bruno Guimaraes and Anthony Gordon scoring before the visitors were reduced to 10 men after Lucas Pires brought down Anthony Elanga in on goal.
However, the Clarets came close to stealing a point. Jacob Ramsey was penalised for a handball in the box and Zian Flemming converted from the penalty spot.
Flemming then found himself unmarked in the box from Marcus Edwards’ cross but couldn’t convert from close range.
Eddie Howe reflects on Newcastle United’s 2-1 win over Burnley
Reflecting on the result, Howe said: “That was an uncomfortable ending for us. Certainly a lot to learn, and the beauty is we’re learning with a victory behind us rather than a negative result, so we have to improve our management of games at the latter stages, and today that nearly cost us. We have to be very honest and say that wasn’t a good period of the game for us.
“Although it was a tough game today, I always thought it was going to be, in the sense that Burnley, very well organised, made it difficult for us. It wasn’t our finest performance, so we’re a long way short of that really, but we got the job done.
“It’s 10 points out of 12. We navigated a game where we didn’t play well and we won. I think we have to be more positive with our league position now, and we’re battling to find our very best form.
“That was a dip in our recent run of games, but there’s still a lot of positives to take.”
Eddie Howe highlights Newcastle United issue after Burnley win
Howe highlighted Newcastle’s issue at defending set pieces after the Ramsey handball followed from his players being unable to clear their lines from a corner.
It follows on from the 2-2 draw against Tottenham Hotspur in midweek in which Cristian Romero scored a late equaliser from a corner into the area.
Howe said: “Well, I think it’s to do with defending corners currently. That’s our issue. Today was a bizarre one, we shouldn’t allow the opponent to get the first contact, then there’s a handball in the box.
“Any set play becomes almost… The 10 v 11 from a set play is irrelevant, really, to a degree. It’s about you’ve got to put your head on the ball before the opponent does, and we haven’t done that well enough in the last two games.
He added: “I think our problem in recent weeks has been defending set plays, but I think the game management side is always linked to the experience of your team, and if you actually look at the team we had at the end there, it was quite young, it was quite youthful, so there’s stuff for the individuals of that team to learn from.”
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