Eddie Howe admitted that Newcastle United must be “close to a perfect game” when they meet on Wednesday in Premier League Liverpool in Anfield.
Newcastle played an exciting 3-3 draw with Liverpool in the inverted game in St James' Park in December, with Fabian Schar's 90th minute Equalizer who pulled a point.
This will be the first of two meetings with the side of Arne Slot in the next three weeks, whereby the teams will also be confronted in the EFL Cup final in Wembley Stadium on 16 March.
The magpies struggled against Liverpool in Anfield in the Premier League; After won 2-0 in April 1994 during their first trip there, they have not since won in one of the last 28 (D5 L23).
Newcastle is even Winless in their last 16 Premier League matches against Liverpool (D5 L11) and beat them for the last time in December 2015 (2-0).
“We have to be close to a perfect game from our perspective,” said Howe.
“Learning from the recent match against Manchester City [a 4-0 defeat at the Etihad Stadium] Would be a good starting point for us if we did not implement the aggressive game plan that we wanted, and we did not attack the game well enough.
“We have to learn from that in Anfield, which is a great environment to play football, but not good if you are not completely there. We have to acknowledge that and ensure that we pop up.
“Psychologically it is huge. It is an emotional stadium, we have to start well and we must have a threat to the game.”
Newcastle will also have to destroy the threat of Mohamed Salah if they want to win at Anfield.
Salah is the only player in the Premier League history who is directly involved in 40+ goals in more than one season, because this in both 2017-18 (42-32 goals, 10 assists) and the current campaign (41-25 goals , 16 assists) for Liverpool.
He also has a talent for scoring HOWE's side, scored four goals in his last two Premier League matches against them, as a result of a brace in both.
Salah also helped Curtis Jones's goal in the reverse match, and Howe urged his players to work as a team to keep him still.
“[Dealing with Salah is] Will be a challenge for us, “Howe added.
“It is always not due to someone in the team, although he will of course stand up against an opponent, it is about the team that supports that area of the field.
“I think against Arsenal at home in the EFL Cup [a 2-0 victory] Is a great game to think about. We defended in two, three, four. We had a mentality that we wanted to defend our goal to the highest level.
“I don't think we have had that consistently in recent weeks, but we need that in this game.”
Comments