Possession lost 20x: “Huge” Newcastle flop was Howe’s glaring liability against Wolves - opinion

Newcastle United took another big step towards securing their place in the Premier League next season by beating Wolves 1-0 at St James’ Park last night.

The Toon found the net in the first half through Chris Wood, only for VAR to intervene and rule it out due to Bruno Guimaraes being offside in the build-up.

With 72 minutes on the clock, a penalty from the New Zealand striker put the home side ahead, which was enough to wrap up the three points for Eddie Howe’s team.

Despite the victory and clean sheet in front of their home fans, not every player in a black and white shirt put in a satisfactory shift on this occasion. Indeed, one man who didn’t have a particularly good game was Matt Targett.

With 90 minutes under his belt, the 25-year-old had 73 touches of the ball but could only complete 35 of the 47 passes that he attempted, as per Sofascore.

To highlight how slack he was on the ball, the left-back ended up misplacing two out of three crosses and five of the seven long balls he attempted, ultimately losing possession 20 times in total, more than any other defender or midfielder for the Magpies.

Things weren’t much better for him off the ball either, having lost seven of his 12 ground duels and being dribbled past on three occasions, making him a glaring liability for his team.

This display ultimately earned the defender a rather uninspiring overall match rating of 6.5/10 from SofaScore, making him the second-lowest rated Toon player on the night behind Allan Saint-Maximin.

This also equals the match rating that Ryan Fraser was given for his efforts on the pitch against Wolves, despite only playing 13 minutes of action before being forced off with an injury.

Despite being praised by Jamie Carragher for his “huge