Gary O'Neil has admitted that Newcastle United did not give Bournemouth any 'real scary moments' after the Cherries interim boss prepared for an onslaught following Alexander Isak's equaliser.
The momentum was with Newcastle at St James' Park after Isak cancelled out Philip Billing's opener from the spot midway through the second half. However, Eddie Howe's side quickly ran out of ideas despite there being nearly half an hour, including injury time, left to play.
Newcastle may have hit the woodwork twice and had 20 shots, eight corners and 73% possession during the course of Saturday's 1-1 draw, but the Magpies did not look like grabbing a winner the longer the game went on. In fact, Newcastle got desperate late on, as Bournemouth dropped deeper and deeper, and the hosts took to shooting from distance.
READ MORE: Newcastle panic after Isak celebration, two words screamed in anger and 'frustrated' Eddie Howe
Howe had few options to try and affect the game from the bench but when the Newcastle boss threw on Chris Wood late on, O'Neil brought on substitute Jack Stephens in response a few minutes later. The debutant had one simple instruction from O'Neil: 'Stop Chris Wood heading it in our goal please mate'.
The reality is Wood barely had a sniff during his brief cameo in the closing stages of the game as Newcastle failed to build on Isak's equaliser.
"When it goes 1-1, you hear the place rocking and I'm thinking, 'Come on then lads. What have we got? It's definitely coming,'" O'Neil told reporters. "They stood up. They were excellent. They were chucking balls in the box. It was a little bit scrappy, but no real scary moments for us. I thought we defended really well."
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