When Eddie Howe replaced midfielder Sandro Tonali shortly after the hour mark on Saturday, Newcastle United supporters let their emotions be known inside St. James’ Park.
Sandro Tonali was among Newcastle’s more valuable players during the Magpies’ dominance against Brighton.
Unfortunately, Eddie Howe’s team struggled to generate any clear-cut opportunities as their present timidity in front of goal continued to play a part.
Brighton simply needed to take advantage of their one genuine opportunity throughout the contest to win three points.
Eddie Howe was looking at more than the players’ performances
Just after the hour mark, Eddie Howe made a desperate move to rotate his bench, sending in Joe Willock and Harvey Barnes while Sandro Tonali and Jacob Murphy left the game.
Fans in the stadium booed Tonali’s substitution, wondering why Howe would bench one of his team’s better players. However, as Howe told Newcastle World, it wasn’t only about Tonali’s play.
“I don’t think Tonali is having any problems; his performance today was fine in my opinion. He was the engine of today’s overwhelming performance in the middle, in my opinion, and he played superbly.
“We’re keeping a careful eye on the guys who play internationals and their workloads in between. I know how tired they are.” Naturally, Sandro was feeling a little worn out when we took him off, and Bruno was starting to cramp up at the end.
“It’s something I’ll have to look at because I don’t think the changes helped us.”
We aren’t surprised that Tonali was starting to feel fatigued
We must keep in mind that Tonali will need some time to recover from missing ten months of regular football action, and if we push him too quickly, we run the risk of hurting him, which is the last thing we need at this point.
It’s not quite surprising that he was faltering a little after playing both of Italy’s games and then such a fast-paced game for Newcastle, even if he appeared good to us.
To be honest, the misfiring front three is the issue at hand, not the midfield. The sooner we tackle the issue of right-wing extremism, the better.
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