When Eddie Howe warned of ‘short-term pain’ on Friday, he never imagined it would be quite so immediate and quite so excruciating. What this weekend highlighted, in fact, are the dangers to the long-term health of Newcastle United.
Aston Villa, famously, once won a title by using just 14 players. Newcastle will not do the same 44 years on. Talk of winning the Premier League expired the moment Bournemouth smashed a deserved fourth on a day when, in Howe’s words, his team were ‘off it in every area’.