Allan Saint-Maximin did not get enough early balls during Newcastle United's 1-0 loss to Liverpool.
That is the verdict of Eddie Howe who saw his side work hard but create very little in terms of clear-cut chances and ended the match with just two shots on target. Saint-Maximin managed just one shot in the game and produced two crosses.
When asked about his contributions, Howe said: "It's difficult. I would never comment, necessarily on individuals. As an attacking force today, we probably weren't at our best; Allan is obviously focal to that.
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"But then again saying that, we found it difficult to get the ball to them in dangerous areas. Maxi thrives off getting early ball to him, trying to get full-backs or centre-backs in one v one duels.
"Maxi worked hard today, he gave his best for the team, but as an attacking force, we weren't quite there."
Howe also explained why Chris Wood has been left out of the starting XI twice in the last week. When asked about the £25million man, he said: "Various different things. When you play the top teams, you know you won't have necessarily the lion's share of possession, so we were looking to strengthen our defensive performance down the sides of the pitch, and also trying to get Maxi's counter-attack threat in a more central area.
"As I said, it didn't necessarily work too well from the team's perspective in the fact that we didn't get a lot of ball into Maxi's feet and enable him to run centrally."
