Newcastle United defeated, but was there some parts of the loss to be positive about? We will let Matthias Jaissle be the judge of that.
Here’s everything the NUFC head coach said from the joint post-match and Monday night preview press conference - including an injury concern, and updates, as well as some telling stuff on his players and their performances.
How can NUFC use defeat to fuel Monday night v Everton?
I think they showed that desire to win throughout the whole 90 minutes, not only in the end, but you’re right, of course then in the end you can go all in, especially when we scored. They felt, OK, maybe there’s something special possible this evening, this night, but of course the time was running out. Now it’s about taking that frustration into motivation for Monday, and having the approach for a revenge on Monday.
NUFC home support can give ‘extra energy’
Yeah, it was also today fantastic with 8,000 spectators, but of course I’m looking forward to playing against the same opponent on Monday at home in front of many more fans from us to support us. They give us this extra feeling, that extra energy, and that helps for sure to get a better result on Monday.
Will Fernandez-Pardo and Miley be available?
Sorry, right now I cannot give you an update on them. Hopefully they can make progress in the next days to be able to maybe make it in the squad, but right now I cannot update you really.
What can you achieve, what’s the positive message going forward?
We said that already at the beginning of the season, right? You were there in the pre-season, that we take that as a long-term journey, and our approach is to make progress, to see improvements. I think now it’s time to learn fast from the mistakes we just did, and we mentioned other phases were already to see that we improved, and this is something we can count on, we can build on, this is the good part. But football is also in the end about results, so you need to avoid these simple mistakes.
Thoughts on cup exit and Everton loss
Yeah, we are of course disappointed with the result, it’s also a bit shocking at the moment, because overall the game was not that bad, but it’s a bit the story of the season so far, that in situations where it really counts, we lack in the clinical approach to solve the situations. Just think about the first one, this is again a no-risk zone, where we said, clear the ball, and nothing happens, and a couple of seconds later you concede a goal out of nothing. The second one is also frustrating, in my point of view we deserve to have a penalty on the other hand, and then you miss that in a transition to defend their own box, which is again for me difficult to accept, we have clear rules on how to behave in these matters. And in the third one, again a critical ball loss when you had possession, and the possession is punishing you on that level, pretty clear. These are the things we need to learn quickly. And on the other hand, I think you also saw the game and the statistics, we had many, many occasions, many opportunities to score, big chances as well, and also in their box we need to be more clinical to get a different result.
Scoreline unfair?
Yeah, definitely. I think we could have scored for sure more goals today, and when you do the things right, and that’s also our approach defensive-wise, and also when you have the ball and avoid these critical ball losses, then you don’t concede three goals. So this makes the evening a bit shocking when you look at the result and see the whole picture. So independent of a young team on a young squad, that was a bit naïve in these occasions, and we need to solve that quickly.
Explain the triple change at half-time
We tried, and especially not with the players, that has something to do also with getting offensive power in the game. With these guys, of course, Will Osula was not able to continue, he twisted his angle in that occasion when he took the shot, and with the other two as well, we wanted to have a bit more fresh energy there, also with thinking, of course, on Monday’s match.
Defeat down to individual errors?
Well, it’s shocking, and it’s frustrating as well, and therefore probably also I need to scream more. But that’s part of the game, you need to avoid these mistakes. Be more mature, more clinical in these situations, just clearance, a pure clearance, and this is a learning process, but you don’t get the time, and we need to learn fast, especially with these young lads. That’s also not anymore an excuse then, so this is now the procedure and the process we are in at the moment. But the fighting spirit, also how much chances we created, I think there was an improvement to see, definitely. But, of course, also the efficiency in the opponent’s box needs to be improved, that out of these many, many shots you get clearer chances and also more goals in the end.
Is this the most frustrated you’ve been up until now?
Because in the end we played OK. I think there was overall, if you just see the overall picture and the bigger picture, we did well in many aspects, in many phases of the game.
But these little situations, these few situations can kill a game, and that makes us in general frustrated, that makes for sure also the fans frustrated, and we need to avoid it in the future to have better results.
What’s your message to the fans?
They obviously were quite upset, probably disgusted by some aspects of the game.
Well, I think they were not happy with the result, and with the three occasions how we defended when the opposition was scoring. Overall, I think they saw a team fighting, a team who create many, many occasions to score. I think also they saw the bigger picture, but of course, they travel here. We wanted to give them a nice evening with a great result, that we come around further in that competition, and that was not succeeding. So, of course, we can understand also their frustration.
How concerned are you that when you lose matches, you’re losing them badly?
Yeah, that’s first of all something where we need to work on, that we’re not conceding so many goals, and you were here now in the whole press conference, I tried to explain that already, that we need to just avoid these individual mistakes, especially when there are occasions where the opposition is not that dominant on the pitch. And today we couldn’t solve that better, and this is something we need to improve for the next match on Monday.
Do you think there’s a softness to your team?
It’s something what I just mentioned about being mature in that situation, be more clinical, solve the situation, and not allowing and give almost a gift for the opposition to score. It feels like the opposition is not giving us these gifts at the moment, and therefore we need to avoid that. And on the other hand, also when it comes to scoring goals, we need to be more efficient out of so many occasions today. How often we enter the box of Everton, there needs to be more than only one goal.