Eddie Howe admits Newcastle have made “mistakes” this season, particularly in terms of injury management, admitting players are “overloaded”.
Howe saw his side’s Champions League run come to an end and their Premier League form derailed by a series of debilitating injuries that at times saw more than 11 first-team players missing at a time.
The Newcastle manager said: “It’s not just the number of injuries we have, it’s the length of time these players are out.” Nottingham Forest’s Alexander Isak, Anthony Gordon, Joelinton and Joe Willock are all will be absent. Saturday night. “The squad we went into this season was built to cope with all the demands we faced and the games we played, but we definitely made mistakes. Of course, we can do better.
“You can handle one of the two [long-term injuries] But five, six, seven, eight players have been out for three or four months. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel, and then your team will be stretched thin and you’ll take more damage. This is one of those seasons where you feel like everything is going against us. “
Howe doesn’t blame the overcrowding in Newcastle’s treatment rooms on bad luck. “Certainly when you see so many injuries, we find that some of them are due to overloading or maybe our training program in the gym is not good enough,” he said.
“The players do a lot of work. They don’t just go to the training ground, they do a lot of training in the gym and do a lot of different things. If we sit here and we don’t make any mistakes, I think we are all fools. So, of course , we analyze everything. When I say we, I include everyone at the football club. It is not about one person or one department. We are all together and, of course, we have to respond.
“We have to improve what we offer players. Football never stands still. The physical demands only increase. The Premier League is much faster than last year. It’s more physically demanding. So your strategy and how you treat players behind the scenes The approach must improve.”
Howe attempted to address the problem by appointing a new chief physiotherapist. Jonny King, who he worked with at Bournemouth, has left Leicester to replace Danny Murphy.
King and his staff are analyzing every injury. “We are reviewing every email we receive and trying to figure out why,” Howe said. “Some are freaks, but then there are others, usually muscle strains, where you think: ‘Is there a way we could avoid this?'”
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The Newcastle manager is also concerned about the role football plays in accelerating the climate crisis. Due to its remote location and lack of viable alternatives, Newcastle United have to fly for most of their away games, but Howe admits this has caused controversy.
“As for the debate about how we get to the game, I’ll leave that to other people to sort out,” he said. “But I do think it needs to be thought about. It needs to be thought about. But on the training pitch I’m definitely trying to do everything in a better way. Food waste, we can recycle more, everything we can do to protect the planet , of course they are all under our consideration.”
