Toon use sense of injustice
EDDIE HOWE says his players must be calm in the head but have fire in their bellies to avoid relegation.
The Newcastle boss revealed there has been “a feeling of disbelief and injustice” among his squad at some of the recent refereeing decisions in their games.
Manchester City keeper Ederson’s charge in the box on Ryan Fraser, which was ignored by VAR, is the most high-profile error.
And Howe has urged those feelings in the dressing room to be turned into a positive ahead of tomorrow’s visit of Manchester United.
He said: “The anger itself is OK for a short period of time. A feeling of disappointment is a good thing because you want to harness that and, for me, I want that to come out on the training ground.
Journey
“Our motivation has to come from within. In my opinion, they have to come from wanting to do well for yourself, your team-mates and for your football club.
“The referees are there to do their jobs, but they are not important in our journey. Our journey is about ourselves and our motivation is to do well for each other.”
And Howe added: “You always need to win. And I am in the kind of job when only winning is acceptable really because you can talk and highlight positives, but ultimately only winning silences any outside noise .
“And even within the squad, the players need to win. Now we must also have a stability in our thought process.
“We have to understand the moment we are in and have calmness in our thoughts.
“I think the work on the training ground is good and we will see the fruits of that labour.
“It may take a bit of time, but I am really pleased with the progress we are making, while being well aware we are in a results business as well.”