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Lee Ryder

Eddie Howe confident of Newcastle United change despite concerning statistical trend

Eddie Howe's last press conference centred around one of the big talking points of Newcastle United's last match day.

Of course, one of them had been the disallowed VAR goal - which saw Joe Willock penalised for a foul - that cost Howe's team victory at St James' Park. But the other big topic was Aleksander Isak's one-on-one which saw him denied by Crystal Palace goalie Vicente Guaita after opting to go for the little dink rather than rounding the former Valencia man.

In a season in which Newcastle are third in the table for putting crosses into the box - with 123 so far - the amount of missed chances stacking up is not through the want of trying or down to a lack of effort. Howe is simply waiting for the chemistry to start bubbling away with his revamped team.

Isak's squandered chance was categorised as a "big chance missed" by the Premier League's official stat centre which is powered by Oracle Cloud. But he's not alone on that score with Callum Wilson having three "big chances" missed, Joe Willock (2), Miguel Almiron (2) and Elliot Anderson (1).

It's something Howe says Newcastle can't afford to keep doing if they are to climb back into the top half of the table. When asked about it after the Palace stalemate, Howe said: "No, you cant. If we played that game again, there's no way we would. It was just one of those days where every presentable chance which came and went, it sort of added to the next one that we got a few minutes later.

"It was incredible, really, because as I say, they were all different. It wasn't just one stream of chances, it was lots of different phases, lots of different players, but the outcome was the same. There's no way we could do that again if we tried.

"But the pleasing thing is we are creating those moments, we're a team that does look like we can score at any moment."

And that is the encouraging thing for Howe and his staff. Newcastle have picked up points and avoided defeat in matches without managing to sew a performance and a result together in the last five games.

Newcastle are fourth in the table for shots at goal with 88 to their name so far and 50% of their goals have came from outside the box meaning things will surely start to drop for them sooner rather than later in the penalty area.

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