After Newcastle’s recent defeat to Borussia Dortmund, I came across an article on Sky Sports that caught my attention. The report aimed to summarize the events of the match and provide some analysis. However, upon reading it, I couldn’t help but draw one of two conclusions.
The first possibility is that the author of this article exhibited a lack of effort and competence, failing to delve into the actual circumstances that Newcastle’s head coach, Eddie Howe, was facing. The second possibility is that the article was written with a deliberate agenda, disregarding the facts and the reality surrounding Eddie Howe and his squad.
It appears to me that the article may have been penned by someone with a specific agenda, intent on portraying Eddie Howe’s decisions as a massive blunder that led to Newcastle’s loss against Dortmund. The author makes it sound like Eddie Howe made unnecessary changes to his starting eleven, attempting to be overly clever and not showing due respect to the Champions League match and the opposition.
However, the reality is somewhat different. Eddie Howe explained after the defeat that he had no other choice but to rotate the squad. Key players like Miguel Almiron and Anthony Gordon were not physically capable of starting and playing most of the match due to a tough schedule and multiple players missing. Eddie Howe’s hands were tied, and he had to rely on the same players repeatedly.
The article focuses on blaming Eddie Howe for his choices, particularly in selecting Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento, and then blames these two players for the defeat. It conveniently ignores the fact that Newcastle had lost their first and second-choice left-backs to serious injuries in the preceding days. The author doesn’t mention that the referee missed a foul, and Hall’s booking was questionable at best. As for Livramento, he was arguably Newcastle’s best player and not at fault for the second goal, given the circumstances.
The article acknowledges the fragility of Newcastle’s squad depth but fails to provide a complete picture. Eddie Howe had at least 12 players unavailable for the match, and the article doesn’t specify who the eight substitutes on the bench were. Apart from Gordon and Almiron, there was 17-year-old Lewis Miley, two goalkeepers, and two inexperienced youngsters, De Bolle and Parkinson, who were filling up the bench due to the lack of options. Paul Dummett, the only other substitute, couldn’t have played at left-back in a Champions League match.
In essence, Eddie Howe had limited choices when selecting his starting eleven and substitutes, and suggesting otherwise is unfair. It’s worth noting that the article was not written by a familiar Sky Sports correspondent covering Newcastle United, such as Keith Downie. Instead, it was authored by someone named Sam Blitz, whose regular job at Sky Sports involves covering Arsenal. This coincidence following Newcastle’s match against Arsenal on Saturday raises questions about the article’s intentions and audience.