Eddie Howe again hits back at time-wasting accusations against Newcastle

Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe has once more hit back at accusations that his team are guilty of time-wasting during matches.

The Magpies are back up to third in the Premier League after Sunday's impressive 2-0 victory over Manchester United that saw them leapfrog Erik ten Hag's side in the table.

But before the match at St James' Park, Ten Hag had suggested that Newcastle were becoming known for “delaying” tactics and that referees needed to take action.

“We know they delay, yeah,” said Ten Hag, “It’s something that is what the referees don’t want, they want to have tempo in the game … So they [referees] also have to be consistent to let the game go.”

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp had made similar comments after Liverpool's last-gasp win over the Tyneside club back in August.

“It was hard to take,” the German said following the game at Anfield. “I had no idea if that tonight was on purpose or if their players really had to go down because [they were] slightly injured. I don’t know.”

Howe dismissed the claims of both managers and, speaking ahead of Wednesday's game away to West Ham United, he reiterated that the accusations made against his side were inaccurate.

“I think our first intention is to always play the game and we want, as I said after the game, we want the ball in play,” said the former Bournemouth manager in Tuesday's pre-match press conference.

“I encourage my players all the time to get the ball back in play very quickly. We want to play at a high tempo and want to wear teams down physically. That goes against what was said about us.

“Of course, there’s been times in games where we have to manage the game. We have to use experience, we have to do whatever we can to get a positive result. I’m not