Joe Willock reveals Eddie Howe wants Newcastle United…

Joe Willock reveals Eddie Howe wants Newcastle United to become 'dominant' on the ball

Joe Willock has revealed Eddie Howe wants his Newcastle United side "to be more dominant with the ball" this season.

In seasons past, controlling a game has not often been one of Newcastle's strongest skills. Under both Rafael Benitez and Steve Bruce, the club featured heavily towards the bottom end of the Premier League's possession rankings.

While in the second-half of Benitez's final season Newcastle played some very easy on the eye football, that work was undone by Bruce, with the Magpies reverting back to sitting deep inside their own half.

After replacing Bruce with Howe last term, there were certainly signs Newcastle looked to be far more confident on the ball. Their second-half of the season run, which saw them go from relegation favourites to an 11th placed finish was clear evidence of this.

And speaking in the aftermath of Newcastle's 3-0 friendly win over 1860 Munich, Willock revealed Howe is demanding his side to become more dominant on the ball, in an effort to control games from the off.

"Next season, we want to be more dominant with the ball and we were practising that building up to the game," Willock told NUFCTV. "I feel like we tried to express that in certain ways but it's a long journey and we're all buying into what the gaffer wants to do. Hopefully, we can show even more on Monday and out in Portugal. We're all buying into what the manager wants to do.

"You saw that at backend of last season and we want to go to the next level now. I feel like there's more expectation of us so we're all trying to buy into what the manager wants to do and hopefully we can get better and better game by game and take it into the season against Nottingham Forest."

Newcastle will finish the Austria leg of their pre-season campaign on Monday with a game against Bundesliga side Mainz, before travelling over to Portugal for a week ahead of their clash with Benfica. And Willock feels as though the Austria trip has been of significant benefit, both individually and collectively.

"I feel like I've got a lot of fitness out of this," added Willock. "I realise how nice Austria is and all the people here have been really nice so I want to thank them for that. We're getting closer as a team. I feel like this was a big trip for us because there's new players integrating into the team and we're getting closer together as a team.

"The managers putting on loads of little team bonding things for us to do. Everyone's knitting together and hopefully we can improve on the pitch even more and game by game we'll get even stronger and fitter."

Joe Willock reveals Eddie Howe wants Newcastle United to become 'dominant' on the ball

READ NEXT