It was another frustrating Saturday afternoon at St James’ Park, despite our brilliant start and superb first half display.
Losing a lead is becoming an all too familiar feeling this season. It has been a strange phenomenon, as Eddie Howe’s teams have historically been good at managing a lead. Those skills have escaped them this season.
Prior to the Chelsea game, Newcastle hadn’t ever dropped points from a 2-0 lead since Eddie Howe was appointed manager. It has been a game situation that has suited the squad, as space would open and our quick, attacking players could take advantage.
After scoring the second on Saturday, Chelsea were there for the taking. Nick Woltemade had a great chance to score his first hat-trick for the club. It recorded an expected goals value of 0.51. On another day, the German finds the back of the net and Newcastle coast to a comfortably victory. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
Howe will be frustrated at how the team conceded minutes after half-time for the second week in succession. It speaks to a mentality issue after the break. There have been countless other occasions where we have conceded after half-time this season and it immediately changes the game state for the worse.
The goals we have been conceding in the recent matches have been soft. Teams don’t need to play free-flowing football to break us down. We make too many individual mistakes and are often too open in our defensive structure. Malick Thiaw was unfortunate to slip for their equaliser, but we shouldn’t have left him that exposed after conceding possession given the game state.
Supporters get nervous when we have a lead and at some point, our losing points from a winning position becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is a difficult trend to stop as Eddie Howe is finding out. We concede when we drop deep to defend a lead, while we also concede when we are chasing another goal.
We are nearly in 2026 and still sit in the bottom half of the table. The Premier League is far from finished for us, but the margin for error decreases on a weekly basis. The next few weeks are pivotal. In the next few weeks, our away fixtures are Manchester United, Burnley and Wolves, while we have home matches against Leeds United and Crystal Palace.
It is a period of fixtures we can attack. If we are to compete for a top five finish, we will need to win at least four of these, possibly all five. The gap to Boxing Day is one of the biggest during this period, so there is a chance for the players to regroup. The performance today was a lot better, but the mentality issues that have existed for weeks continue to hinder us.