Newcastle United suffers a shocking 4-0 defeat to Celtic in their pre-season opener! What went wrong for Eddie Howe's side?
The match revealed some harsh realities for Newcastle, with self-inflicted errors and a lack of sharpness costing them dearly. Despite positive changes in the second half and a strong performance from Bruno Guimaraes, the team struggled to find their rhythm.
Is this a wake-up call for Newcastle? With new signings needed and a tough run of pre-season games ahead, the team faces a critical period of preparation.
00:00Celtic 4, Newcastle United 0 in Newcastle's opening pre-season friendly match.
00:06In front of a crowd, as I say, Eddie Howe speaking to the club media behind me there.
00:12Difficult afternoon, plenty of food for thought for Eddie Howe I'm sure.
00:17Obviously no Alexander Isak or Joe Linton today, two big misses.
00:20It's Newcastle's first proper friendly game, they did play training ground friendly against Carlisle last week
00:27and have spent the week in Austria, but yeah, really rusty today, did look off the pace.
00:32Celtic probably deserve the 4-0 win, two goals in either half from them.
00:36I think the first half, Newcastle were okay, just two self-inflicted goals.
00:40One, Joe Willock conceding a penalty, a very soft penalty, a very avoidable penalty from Newcastle's perspective.
00:47The second one, Nick Pope, on a week where Newcastle's interest in a goalkeeper has sort of cooled slightly
00:53in terms of the pursuit of James Trafford, it's a howler from Nick Pope.
00:57Completely misjudges the bounce of the ball and yeah, Celtic get a gimme of a goal to make it 2-0.
01:04Second half, wholesale changes at the break, we saw Anthony Alanga come on, Anthony Gordon,
01:09Sandro Tonali, plenty of positive changes.
01:12We saw a couple of young lads as well, the likes of Alex Murphy, Joe White get on the pitch as well.
01:18Sean Neve and Travis Hearns also came on late on.
01:20Sean Neve nearly scored, probably Newcastle's best chance of the second half in late.
01:27in the game and yeah, Willis Sula played the majority of the game up front with Newcastle
01:31having no real other strike options other than Sean Neve in Alexander Isaac's absence.
01:37And Willis Sula, he was lively but lacking that end quality.
01:42As Newcastle were on the whole really, they had a couple of half chances but never really
01:46did too much to test the goalkeeper.
01:49Anthony Alanga, probably a debut to forget in terms of the result and the performance from
01:53Newcastle United, he was generally quiet in the game but then did have a few bright sparks
02:01later on.
02:02I mean, it's nothing to read too much into, obviously.
02:06It's Newcastle's first pre-season friendly game, they would have wanted it to go a lot
02:10better than it actually did.
02:12But yeah, plenty of food for thought for Eddie Howe and if there's anything that is needed
02:19to sharpen minds and sharpen focus heading into an important run of pre-season ahead of
02:24the opening game of the Premier League season, I guess the one sort of half positive you can
02:29take from it is a bit of a battering today, a bit of a reality check and a wake-up call.
02:34Newcastle probably should get Newcastle's backside into gear, kick up the backside, hopefully
02:42get a few new signings through the door because based on today's showing, I mean, you scratch
02:46the surface, the squad didn't quite look up to it today.
02:51Against the Celtic side who are obviously a couple of weeks ahead in terms of pre-season,
02:56in terms of fitness but yeah, you'd expect much more from what we saw from Newcastle United
03:01today, no real excuses really for the actual standard of performance to put in at times.
03:08I thought the only player who could really leave the pitch with his head held high and
03:12he only played 45 minutes with Bruno Dimerais, he was running the show in the first half, even
03:17though Newcastle were 2-0 down every time he got the ball, soaked up pressure, pinged it
03:21around the pitch, controlled the game quite well but he was playing in that number six role,
03:26slightly unfamiliar for him now considering Sandro Tornoli's been in it all season but Newcastle
03:31starting with Bruno and then Lewis Miley and Joe Willock in the midfield three and yeah,
03:37I think Bruno, man of the match for Newcastle by a country mile, no one else really stood
03:42out in a couple of poor performances as well.
03:44As I say, Nick Pope, Joe Willock made mistakes leading to goals, Joe White didn't really take
03:51his opportunity, Anthony Alanga, I wouldn't say he was poor by any means but a debut that's
03:57just sort of passed him by really and goes for most Newcastle players, we saw Jamal LaSalle's
04:04back on the pitch again, looked rusty but Alex Murphy started brightly after coming in at half
04:11time but then beaten two ahead after Celtic's fourth goal so yeah, all in all Newcastle can only try and take the positives and really get a reaction from this disappointing result but yeah, it's sort of plenty of food for thought for Eddie Howe and they're going ahead, off to Asia now, playing Arsenal next week, arguably a much tougher test, let's see what sort of reaction they get but we'll have all the fallout from this game, Newcastle United play our ratings over on the Shields Gazette,
04:41website as well as Eddie Howe's reaction to come over on the Shields Gazette.com, thanks for watching.
