Players not feeling up to it - Howe

EDDIE Howe does not think Newcastle United would have hammered Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium if the game had been played in front of a crowd because his players have not yet adapted to ‘feelingless’ football behind closed doors.

The Cherries have not won any of their last seven league match either side of the lockdown and currently lie in 19th place in the table.

Bournemouth, without a clean sheet since December, have looked particularly vulnerable since football restarted last month and have conceded seven goals in their three fixtures against Crystal Palace, Wolves and Newcastle.

Howe’s side looked shellshocked after Dwight Gayle broke the deadlock on five minutes and, inspired by a man-of-the-match performance from Allan SaintMaximin, Newcastle were 3-0 up before the hour mark.

Substitute Valentino Lazaro added a fourth late on before former Newcastle midfielder Dan Gosling pulled one back for Bournemouth in stoppage time.

While Howe

(right) was keen to pay tribute to how the Magpies

‘counterattacked very well,’ the Bournemouth boss admitted his side ‘never recovered’ from Gayle’s early goal.

He said after the 4-1 defeat: “I don’t think my emotional energy is in doubt day to day.

“I think the problem we have is the games themselves are not emotionless but feelingless without the crowd and I think that is damaging us greatly at the moment.

“I think if we had conceded the early goal the response from the crowd would have helped us back into it.

“I don’t think there is any way that game would have ended up as the scoreline it was.

“However, in a feelingless game, when we know how much is at stake, it is very difficult for the players to adjust to that and certainly we have not adjusted well enough to that.

“I think that is probably been our biggest failing so far.

“The games and the feeling of the games are something which have damaged us.”