‘There’s no better learning curve’; Howe philosophical as Newcastle plan to narrow gap to leaders

Newcastle boss Eddie Howe refused to be too downbeat after watching his side mauled by Manchester City and feels his players will learn from the experience.

The Magpies arrived at the Etihad having lost 1-0 to Liverpool last time out. And they left having conceded five in a match that resembled men against boys at times. Raheem Sterling opened and closed the scoring, with his first on 19 minutes and second three minutes into stoppage time.

Aymeric Laporte made it 2-0 at the break while Rodri and Phil Foden also bagged after the interval. The Citizens dominated the match from start to finish, with the Tynesiders struggling to get a kick at times.

And Howe pulled no punches in his assessment of the result.

“The second and third goals, the two set-plays were disappointing from our perspective. Two corners, we’re kicking ourselves,” he told Sky Sports. “We had a good spell after the two subs. We had good chances to score.

“I’m disappointed with the last few minutes, it puts a different view on the game. We had some good passages of play. We tried to be positive. You can’t make individual mistakes here. If you do that you’ll concede – and we did.

“Those small details matter and they punished us. We could have defended both corners better.”

Playing the nation’s best two teams one after the other was always going to be a tough ask for the north-east outfit. Newcastle have improved dramatically since the turn of the year and relegation is no longer an issue.

The Saudi-backed takeover means they will be able to compete for top players in the summer window. And Howe hopes that those who wear black and white in the future will be better from having faced the title chasers.

“There’s no better learning curve than playing Liverpool