Is this the moment a rough patch turns into a full blown crisis for Eddie Howe? Newcastle’s manager has now presided over four straight defeats and with his team stuck in 14th place European qualification now looks ambitious in the extreme.
Howe has never beaten his old Bournemouth side in the Premier League and was forced to watch, glumly, from the technical area as Andoni Iraola’s players extended their unbeaten Premier League to a club record 13 games, rising to eighth in the process.
If the news that Iraola is to depart the south coast in the summer clearly failed to disrupt the visitor’s upward trajectory, Bournemouth’s pleasingly fluent football and sharp, slick transitions merely emphasised how far, and alarmingly, Newcastle have regressed since last month’s Champions League thrashing at Barcelona. By the end many of those booing the team off would doubtless be very happy if Iraola were to replace Howe this summer.
Bournemouth were ahead in the 32nd minute when, with Sven Botman suffering a concentration outage, Marcus Tavernier slid in to force a menacing low cross from the excellent Rayan over the line from close range.
As Howe stared blankly into space the stadium fell silent but it had never been that noisy. This had little to do with supporter apathy and was much more about the incoherence and passivity of Newcastle’s play. It speaks volumes that one of the biggest cheers of the first half was in response to Bruno Guimarães stepping off the bench and gently jogging up and down the touchline.
Guimarães is still convalescing from a combination of injury and illness but the Brazil midfielder still looked more dynamic than his teammates. Indeed Newcastle were extremely fortunate not to concede a second goal when Evanilson’s faulty connection saw him direct Alex Scott’s excellent cross just wide from two yards out.
Djordje Petrovic’s sole significant first-half save saw him do well to claw Lewis Hall’s deflected free-kick to safety just as it seemed set to creep across the line but otherwise Howe’s players were utterly listless.
The smattering of boos that greeted the half-time whistle can have come as scant surprise to Newcastle’s manager. His cause was hardly helped by Hall’s struggles to subdue Rayan and Harvey Barnes’s failure to dodge the similarly impressive Álex Jiménez.
With the talented 19-year-old Eli Junior Kroupi further destabilising the hosts, Howe had much to ponder at the interval. He replaced Hall with Kieran Trippier and Tino Livramento switched to left-back.
How Newcastle’s manager could have done with Anthony Gordon at his best but the inconsistent England winger was absent with a “minor injury” at the end of a week of intense transfer speculation linking him with a summer move to Bayern Munich.
Something evidently had to change though and just after the hour mark Howe replaced the ineffective Anthony Elanga and Jacob Ramsey with Jacob Murphy and Guimarães. Newcastle’s medical team had advised the manager against involving the captain but Howe evidently decided he could not do without the midfielder any longer.
His appearance succeeded in lifting the St James’ Park mood and Sandro Tonali’s pleasure at his return was reflected in the kiss on the cheek he gave Guimarães as he handed him the captain’s armband.
Shortly afterwards William Osula equalised with Guimarães the slightly fortunate creator. As the latter drove forward Evanilson’s challenge ended up inadvertently putting Osula through. All that remained was for Newcastle’s current first-choice centre-forward to evade Petrovic’s grasp after cutting in on his right foot.
Although the goal was initially disallowed for an offside against Osula, Evanilson’s intervention ensured that, after a length video assistant referee review, the goal stood.
If the Denmark Under-21 striker’s poised finish emphasised why he is now ahead of £124m worth of attacking talent in Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa in Howe’s frontline pecking order, the manager’s luck did not hold for too long.
Barely had the celebrations subsided than Livramento pulled up nursing a hamstring pull and was replaced by Dan Burn.
Howe’s horizon would soon turn even bleaker. When Evanilson headed down Tavernier’s looping cross the ball fell kindly to Adrian Truffert inside the six-yard box. A swipe of a boot later the left-back had scored his first goal for Bournemouth and Newcastle’s weekend was ruined.