Eddie Howe urged his Newcastle players to recover quickly from the 7-2 thrashing at Barcelona that ended their Champions League interest at the last‑16 stage, going out 8-3 on aggregate.
Anthony Elanga scored twice in reply to goals from Barça’s Raphinha and Marc Bernal in the first half, before a penalty from Lamine Yamal in first-half stoppage time. Newcastle collapsed in the second half, with further goals from Fermín López, a Robert Lewandowski double and another for Raphinha racking up an embarrassing scoreline.
“I have no problem picking myself up, it is more the players,” said Howe, whose side face Sunderland in the Premier League on Sunday. “I am able to move quite quickly through things, through games and the review process. Now it is all about Sunderland. It is not about today, it is about making sure we are mentally and physically ready to go into a huge game. I think it’s a good game for us to go into.
“Sunday is huge. It’s difficult for me to talk about it now. We have just got to play like our lives depend on it. It’s such a big game for city for the supporters, for the players, for the whole club. We need to deal with this very quickly and look to Sunday.”
Howe insisted that there were parts of his team’s performance that were positive as they took the game to Barcelona and scored twice in the opening 45 minutes at the Camp Nou but he admitted that they never overcame the mental blow of conceding with the final kick of the first half and lamented the defensive errors that prevented them from leading at the break.
“We gave them a really good game for 90 at St James’ Park and half the game today. That should not all be forgotten as difficult as the scoreline is to see. That doesn’t reflect how the game was,” Howe said.
“Our defending was not at the level it had been against Chelsea. The first goal, two players slipped. Then there’s a set play. And then the big moment is the penalty. As well as we played in the first half – and I thought we were outstanding, it was a great representation of what we want to be – we made too many errors.
“If we had defended the way we can, we would not have gone in at half‑time trailing. Then we conceded another set play. The first four goals were strange from us: you can’t concede like that. The two set-play goals are unforgivable in that they are regulation. That can’t happen. I don’t think psychologically we recovered [from Lamine Yamal’s penalty].”
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