Post Match Press Conference: Eddie Howe & Fabian Hürzeler

Eddie Howe had a very positive outlook in the post match press conference after his teams victory over Brighton & Hove Albion. 

Newcastle won their first game after losing four premier league matches in a row, Eddie how said: “I think we’ve been building towards that for a few weeks and the training has been really strong, it’s been really committed, it’s been very competitive.

“I’m a big believer that you always end up getting your rewards for that if your work continues to be strong and credit to the players for sticking together, staying united. Behind the scenes, they’ve been excellent and at times we’ve rode a little bit of luck today, but I think we’ve more than deserved that in the recent weeks.”

Howe added: “it was one of those rare moments when you know that sort of the game is over, before the game over, if that makes sense?”

When asked about Newcastle Chairman (Yasir Al-Rumayyan) being there for the game after the annual summit meeting, Howe said: “He spoke to the players after the game, spoke really well about his plans for the future and how committed he is to me and everyone is to the football club, with long term growth and exciting times ahead. It was great to see, they have been very supportive.”

Howe was asked “will you get eight hours sleep tonight?” he said: “Well its funny because I didn’t get eight hours sleep last night. there was a moment where I woke and thought what day is it? which is unusual for me because I’m a pretty good sleeper, but there was an anxiety for me last night where I’m going into todays game, just wanting the team to perform.

Im sure I will sleep well tonight, certainly with the emotions in that game.”

Fabian Hürzeler  said: “You could say it was dramatic. We dominated the game. We started the game well, had two good chances and then Newcastle scored out of nowhere. Then the second goal is from a set-piece and we lost our overall structure. But we always had the feeling that we could win this game, we created so much. We shouldn’t have conceded so easily, we should manage the key moments of the game better. On the other side we created so many chances so we have to be more ruthless.

“When we focus on the performance, you don’t see a lot of teams dominating here like we did. We will take away the positives, we will analyse the game too, because in certain key moments we weren’t at our standards, we have to show personality and character and then we try to bounce back.”

Hurzeler was also asked about Newcastle being a physical team, his response: “When you’re smaller than another team, you have to make sure you use your body in a good way – we are not known as a physical team, but we can be aggressive and we pressed intensely. I won’t make an excuse about this.”

Before the fixture at St James Park, Brighton had hired MMA fighters to help improve the physicality of the squad, mostly for set piece duals, looking towards the Newcastle match. Hurzeler didn’t want Brighton “to be know as a club that is nice”.