No wonder Eddie Howe reacted as he did with this journalist

A lot has been said after Eddie Howe did his press conference on Friday.

The Newcastle United boss speaking ahead of the Crystal Palace match.

However, it was a question about the Burnley match and the Eddie Howe reply to it, which has been given the most attention.

The United boss challenged about a Burnley “onslaught” by one of the journalists.

Eddie Howe replying…“An onslaught? What? Against us? Have you seen the stats from that game? You must have been watching a different game. There was no onslaught. Yes, we had moments [where Burnley had chances and pressure] of course, though we had moments as well the other way. If it had been an onslaught would say it was.”

I have to say, I’ve every sympathy with Eddie Howe here.

The coverage by some media, especially the local journalists/media, is pretty appalling much of the time these days.

We rarely see any fairness or balance and it very much feels like certain media are so desperate now, they will say and write anything to get attention and clicks. It seems like they see over the top headlines and negativity, as their best route to get noticed. To me, I often think you’d be mistaken for believing they were writing to please non-Newcastle United fans, attracting them with their clickbait negativity.

If Newcastle United experienced an ‘onslaught’ by Burnley, what does that then make the Man U and Chelsea matches? Especially the first half against Chelsea when Newcastle absolutely battered them, before mistakes by Ramsdale and Thiaw allowed two soft goals in a more even second half. Then at Old Trafford, Man U barely got out of their half after the break and United had more than twice the possession overall.

Burnley had lost at home by more than one goal on only two previous occasions, against Arsenal and Chelsea, home and away they have generally been competitive and if losing, usually just by an odd goal. They aren’t whipping boys getting hammered every week.

Burnley were bound to have a real go after going two down and they scored a good goal with just over 20 minutes gone. The next 70 or so minutes they didn’t score and whilst they had some decent attacking play, I think Newcastle defended pretty well and Nick Pope only had three saves to make after the goal. He did well but that was the reality, four attempts on target for Burnley in the entire match. Burnley did hit the woodwork (Gordon hit it twice from distance in the reverse fixture at St James’ Park!) but they didn’t have another chance as clear as say Harvey Barmes had when put through one on one with Dubravka. Newcastle also had an effort cleared off the line, Gordon and others had chances they should have put away.

As Eddie Howe says, look at the stats. Newcastle United had more shots (20 v 15), more efforts on target (9 v 4), more corners (4 v 3), more possession (52% v 48%).

United also had an Expected Goals stat that was almost double that of Burnley’s.

As I said earlier, it feels like so much negativity abounds in the media coverage, no balance, journalists like a dog with a bone, relentless in pursuing a negative agenda.

Fair enough, go on and on about the Newcastle United away record (which actually these past six weeks has seen NUFC win two, lose two and draw in Leverkusen), but surely you have to give at least equal weight to the home form, the last ten at SJP bringing eight wins, two draws and 21 goals, scoring at least two in each of these last ten home games.

You also surely have to factor in that Eddie Howe has faced so many injuries (and suspensions) in his squad and matches every midweek and weekend.

Only now is Yoane Wissa hopefully reaching full fitness and we saw Pope and Joelinton also able to come back into the team at Burnley. Eddie Howe revealing on Friday that he may have three more long-term missing back available against Palace, with Botman, Trippier and Tino hopefully in the matchday squad.

Nobody thinks this season so far has been perfect BUT it has hardly been the disaster that certain journalists want to push.