Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe praised his side’s character after they held out to secure a 1-0 win over an Everton side that he claims “ask you a lot of questions.” Miguel Almiron’s sublime chip from the edge of the area on 31 minutes proved to be the difference between the sides at St James’ Park and condemned the Blues to a third consecutive defeat.
Howe said: “It was a hard-fought win. I don’t think it was our best performance with the ball, but defensively we were very good, very disciplined, it was a real battle in midfield and a very physical game.
“Everton are a team that ask you a lot of questions. Aerially, with Jordan Pickford’s distribution, there are a lot of balls going down the heart of our team and we had to find the answers to that, aerially and physically in the middle of the pitch with the second balls.
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“We dealt with their aerial threat very well and our general structure and shape was good. Nick (Pope) didn’t have too much to do with his hands but he had quite a bit to do with his feet in terms of sweeping up balls inside our back line so full credit to the whole team over how we defended.”
Everton didn’t record a single shot on target during the game but Howe admitted that he never felt that comfortable on the way to securing three points. He said: “I wasn’t aware of that until afterwards, it didn’t feel that way during the game.
“Everton did ask questions of us physically, I think they’re a good team and certainly in the second half we were playing in flashes on the ball. We needed the second goal to kill the game and it never came and there’s where the concentration of the group was very good to see the game out.”
Everton manager Frank Lampard believed that his side should have been awarded a penalty when Anthony Gordon went down under a challenge from Dan Burn but Howe concurred with Hartlepool referee Tony Harrington’s decision not to award a spot-kick.
The Magpies boss, who was a boyhood Evertonian, said: “My view at the time, and I haven’t seen a view of it, was that it was shoulder to shoulder and I thought Dan pulled his arms away if anything as contact was made. Naturally I’m going to say ‘no penalty’ but I haven’t seen it again.”
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