Newcastle's defeat by Bournemouth laid bare the biggest problem Eddie Howe has - if the club don't address it, something special could be wasted, writes CRAIG HOPE
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When Eddie Howe warned of ‘short-term pain’ on Friday, he never imagined it would be quite so immediate and quite so excruciating. What this weekend highlighted, in fact, are the dangers to the long-term health of Newcastle United. Aston Villa, famously, once won a title by using just 14 players. Newcastle will not do the same 44 years on. Talk of winning the Premier League expired the moment Bournemouth smashed a deserved fourth on a day when, in Howe’s words, his team were ‘off it in every area’.
![[Beyond the confines of the core stars, Newcastle's squad is threadbare and risks exhaustion]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/19/16/94267505-14302131-image-a-2_1737305549025.jpg)
That is what happens when a group of around a dozen players win nine games on the bounce. There comes a day when they bounce no more. Saturday was that day, be it because of fatigue or, perhaps even more so, a complacency that arises from a lack of real competition for places.
![[By summer they will have gone two full years without signing a first XI star unless they recruit this January]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/19/16/94267521-14302131-image-m-14_1737305662535.jpg)
Twenty-four hours earlier, Howe had revealed that, because of PSR, there would likely be no new signings in January, despite expected departures. That was what he meant by short-term pain, a squad whose talent pool - in some key positions especially - runs shallow beyond those he picks every week.
![[Bournemouth's Justin Kluivert looked the £150m man with his hat-trick, not Alexander Isak]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/19/16/94267595-14302131-image-a-15_1737305955812.jpg)
And Howe, by his own admission, does pick the same players every week when his team is winning. Effective rotation is the next step in Newcastle’s evolution. But to do that a head coach needs better options on the carousel. The expected loss of Miguel Almiron to Atlanta United is not a big loss at all when considering his recent form. It is the failure to replace him with better - either through choice or inability - that will hinder Newcastle in the short term, as Howe spoke about.
