Eddie Howe said he was investing all his energy in players \u201cwho want to play for Newcastle\u201d after his side were sent to a stunning defeat by the 16-year-old substitute Rio Ngumoha\u2019s \u00ad100th-minute winner for Liverpool.<\/p>\n
Howe, whose 10-man team had fought back to level at 2-2 after Anthony Gordon\u2019s first-half red card, claimed to be unaware of a last-ditch bid by the club\u2019s owners to persuade Alexander Isak to abandon his one-man strike<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Sweden striker, currently trying to force a move to Liverpool<\/a> and training separately from his teammates, was not at St James\u2019 Park to see an extraordinary game unfold, but earlier in the day the minority club owner Jamie Reuben had led an attempt to change Isak\u2019s mind when he met with the striker in Northumberland.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not aware of a meeting with the owners but I have not been party to talks [about Isak\u2019s future] for a long time,\u201d Newcastle\u2019s manager said. \u201cI have been preparing the team, giving my energy to players who want to play for Newcastle. I have no idea where things [regarding Isak] stand.\u201d<\/p>\n Yasir al-Rumayyan, Newcastle\u2019s chair, made a rare visit to St James\u2019 Park along with fellow members of the majority owners, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know why he [al-Rumayyan] is here,\u201d Howe said. \u201cHis presence is much appreciated from my perspective. He is the owner and he is the most important person in terms of any decisions we make.\u201d<\/p>\n The Newcastle chair Yasir al-Rumayyan made one of his rare visits to St James\u2019 Park on the day a delegation from the owners met with Alexander Isak. Photograph: Lee Smith\/Action Images\/Reuters<\/p>\n Howe hopes a final decision on whether or not to sell Isak to \u00adLiverpool will arrive swiftly. \u201cThat would be ideal,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want clarity to move forward and to change the narrative. We have given two really good performances [without Isak or a senior striker] and ended up with one point. Alex\u2019s quality would have made a difference in the two games.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve very mixed feelings tonight. It was a great performance from us. I\u2019m gutted for the players. Everyone had told me Anthony\u2019s card was a clear red but I think he was slightly unlucky. There was no intent to damage [Virgil] van Dijk but he\u2019s probably gone in too quickly. Will Osula came on, scored a goal and did well, but we are running out of attacking options.\u201d<\/p>\n Not that Howe was entirely downcast. \u201cThese players make me proud,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are entwined into Newcastle, they want to be here and want to play. They are connected to the club in a way that is really deep. That was an incredible place to play football. As a football club I thought we showcased our talents. This isn\u2019t going to be a simple season for us. There is no intentional dig to Alex, but naturally I want players that are committed to Newcastle.\u201d<\/p>\n His Liverpool counterpart played a straight bat when it came to Isak. \u201cThis is not the moment or the place to talk about that,\u201d said Arne Slot<\/a> before joining his players as they headed to Newcastle airport and their return flight to Merseyside. \u201cMy main emotion is relief.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Rio Ngumoha celebrates his 100th-minute winner against Newcastle. Photograph: Owen Humphreys\/PA<\/p>\n \u201cThis means more to me than a 5-0 win. This had nothing to do with tactics. It was a great game to watch but it was a game that was impossible for us to control. The fans were so loud, the atmosphere was unbelievable. I\u2019m not sure it was a football match but we found a way to win.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a great goal for a 16-year-old. Rio can finish so well for his age. I did hear someone say afterwards in the dressing room he would have taken a first touch, but he is so confident. For his age, he is a really good finisher.\u201d<\/p>\n Gordon used social media to say sorry for his red card. \u201cI want to sincerely apologise to my teammates and the fans,\u201d he posted. \u201cMy intentions were pure. I was just trying to create energy in the game and I mistimed the tackle.\u201d The England international also apologised to Van Dijk: \u201cI would never intend to tackle somebody like this on purpose. We spoke after and he knows that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eddie Howe said he was investing all his energy in players \u201cwho want to play for Newcastle\u201d after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-97369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}