United shut season over claims down

NEWCASTLE United boss Eddie Howe has scoffed at any suggestion his players were ready to hit the beach early this season - by pointing to the fact the Magpies remain firmly in the hunt for Europe in the run-in.

It was Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher who claimed that Newcastle looked “ready” for their end of season break after the 3-2 defeat at Stamford Bridge in March.

But since then Newcastle have only lost once in the last six top-flight games and while Carragher was making an observation about that performance at Stamford Bridge in isolation, United can now cement their place in Europe a little further by beating Burnley this weekend.

Howe said: “You’ve got 10 games to play for Newcastle United, there was no part of anybody internally that thought, ‘Well, that’s our season over’.

“It was about, ‘Right, we need to show that we’re still competitive and we’re still a good team and we can be successful, and all that momentum that we’ll carry at the back end of this season, we’ll take into next’, so we didn’t under-estimate the responsibility that that brought.”

Howe has also thrown the gauntlet down in the last four games to challenge his side further and demanded an improvement, despite hammering Sheffield United.

Howe said: “I think we’ve got room to improve just in terms of getting numbers back that can help us and these players that again have had to go week in, week out - and again v Sheff United, a very quick turn-around of games, we couldn’t really rotate the team more than we did, so it’s been a big burden on those lads.

“But they’ve done incredibly well. I think there was a bit of fatigue in that first-half performance, that wasn’t like us, but second half when we had a much better feel about us, you saw the attacking quality that we do possess and as you say with other players to come back, I think it’s exciting.”

Eddie Howe