Howe sack? Time for awkward questions as Newcastle hit interlull looking down, not up

We must now ask, with a yawning international break opening up before us, at what point do Newcastle and Eddie Howe take their turn under the glare of the crisis-club spotlight?

This was another grim day away from the North East for the Toon Army, extending a winless run away from St James’ Park in the Premier League that extends back as far as April and for the second weekend in a row sees them take a 1-0 lead in London but head back north on the wrong end of a stinging 3-1 defeat.

The second half was rotten from Newcastle as Brentford seized full control to run out deserved winners. Actual positions in the currently quite silly Premier League table can mislead and don’t necessarily mean much given the scale of the congestion among the teams backed up in Arsenal’s wake.

Everton are 13th, but also only four points outside the top four. The problem for Howe and Newcastle is that this latest damaging defeat leaves them in danger of dropping out the back of this peloton of mediocrity altogether.

They may be only a place behind Everton, but at three points it’s the biggest gap in the league after the one between first and second. Newcastle are keeping company with your Fulhams, your Leeds, the Burnleys of this world and now with only a skinny advantage over the recovering banterholics of West Ham and Nottingham Forest.

Howe’s side now sit closer to the bottom three than they do to Everton. It’s a problem.

And this was another tame and timid performance on the road, just like it was at the London Stadium.

The first half was a cagey affair, and Newcastle to be fair produced its one moment of real quality when Harvey Barnes kept his composure to work the perfect shooting opportunity before drilling his effort past Caoimhin Kelleher.

But there was soon an air of inevitability about the second half. Newcastle created almost nothing and Brentford were all over them. The goal when it came was courtesy of a Michael Kayode long throw, in accordance with the prophecy.

We’ll keep saying it: there’s nothing remarkable about the distance Kayode achieves, but there is something remarkable about the Delapesque trajectory he achieves. Any full-back worth his salt can lob a throw-in to the near post; the trick is to be able to fire them in there. And Kayode has it down.

Newcastle are a team of defensive giants but not even they could cope, with Sven Botman able only to get in Nick Pope’s way and divert the ball to a grateful Kevin Schade.

Things did then get a bit silly for a while, but the key battle was without doubt Dan Burn v Dango Ouattara and there was a clear winner. It was not Newcastle’s midweek hero.

From the moment Burn was booked for dragging Ouattara down after being all too easily spun, he and Newcastle were in trouble. Brentford relentlessly picked at that scab until the necessary occurred.

Ouattara paid a heavy price for making a huge meal of what was probably a foul by Burn that would have led to a penalty and a red card had either Stuart Attwell or VAR seen it differently. Instead, Ouattara’s over-reaction earned him a booking and Brentford a sense of seething injustice that was dispelled entirely 10 minutes later when the same two players clashed again, Burn once again late and struggling, and this time the penalty and red card duly arrived.

The fact it was far less of a foul than the first penalty didn’t seem to worry anyone all that much. It’s no way to officiate top-flight sport, but the net outcome of the two incidents being one penalty and one red card and one yellow card for simulation felt like an accidentally quite reasonable outcome. Good process, boys.

Newcastle then did okay for a bit with 10 men, creating more than they had in the first 30 minutes of the second half with a full quota before Botman’s afternoon to forget ended with him failing to realise Igor Thiago, having scored the penalty, was then behind him in injury time to pounce on a loose ball and end the contest while continuing his own fine season in making the losses of Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa feel like absolutely nothing.

Newcastle’s woes were deepened by losing Pope to what looked like possible concussion after a nasty fall from collecting a high ball; he tried to play on but made way just before the decisive penalty. Rotten luck for him if that jeopardises a well-deserved England recall.

But it’s an uncomfortable international break all round for Newcastle and their manager now, one that will be spent looking nervously down rather than optimistically up, and with Man City far from ideal visitors straight after the break.

READ NEXT: Leeds United among likely PL bottom three as £37.5m Nottm Forest star highlights key difference