Is this the moment a rough patch turns into a full blown crisis for Eddie Howe? Newcastle’s manager has now presided over four straight defeats and with his team stuck in 14th place European qualification now looks ambitious in the extreme.
Howe has never beaten his old Bournemouth side in the Premier League and was forced to watch, glumly, from the technical area as Andoni Iraola’s players extended their unbeaten Premier League to a club record 13 games, rising to eighth in the process.
If the news that Iraola is to depart the south coast in the summer clearly failed to disrupt the visitors’ upward trajectory, Bournemouth’s pleasingly fluent football and sharp, slick transitions merely emphasised how far, and alarmingly, Newcastle have regressed since last month’s Champions League thrashing at Barcelona. By the end many of those booing the team off would doubtless be very happy if Iraola were to replace Howe this summer.
Bournemouth were ahead in the 32nd minute when, with Sven Botman suffering a concentration outage, Marcus Tavernier slid in to force a menacing low cross from the excellent Rayan over the line from close range.
As Howe stared blankly into space the stadium fell silent but it had never been that noisy. This had little to do with supporter apathy and was much more about the incoherence and passivity of Newcastle’s play. It speaks volumes that one of the biggest cheers of the first half was in response to Bruno Guimarães stepping off the bench and gently jogging up and down the touchline.
