EDDIE HOWE admitted Newcastle United’s lack of attacking threat was the major negative in his side’s performance in their 2-0 defeat at Manchester City.

Newcastle crashed out of the FA Cup at the quarter-final stage as they lost at the Etihad Stadium, with two deflected first-half efforts from Bernardo Silva settling the last-eight tie.

Defensively, the Magpies were found wanting in the first half, but it was their lack of threat at the other end that most upset their head coach.

Newcastle’s only effort on target came to nothing when Alexander Isak’s first-half shot was saved, and for all that Howe’s quadruple change in the first half improved his side’s energy, they failed to record a single effort at goal in the whole of the second period.

“The goals are difficult to take, especially the first one, which was a big deflection that flies into the top corner,” said Howe. “I don’t really know what to say to that, it’s just the football Gods working against us.

“I thought the lads gave everything. We were trying to upset their rhythm and win the ball back high, and it’s a really delicate balance when you’re trying to do that.

“I thought we did okay, I thought we stuck at it and did unsettle them at times, but ultimately, when we did get into the final third and had the opportunities to hurt them, our quality wasn’t there, and that’s the big disappointment looking back.

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“You want to be a bigger attacking threat than we were in the game. I did think there were moments for us where we didn’t end up shooting, but we had the ball in threatening positions. The numbers weren’t good enough though, and that’s not a reflection of where we’ve been as an attacking threat this season. We’ve scored a lot of goals, so we know we’re capable.”

Howe switched to five at the back for today’s game, but the change in formation failed to prevent Manchester City from scoring two goals in the space of 18 minutes as Newcastle’s defenders backed off Bernardo Silva, enabling the Portuguese forward to fire home two deflected strikes.

“We tried to give them a different problem,” said the Magpies boss. “We’ve played against them a lot this season already, and we tried to be creative with our team selection, always with an eye on both phases of defending and attacking.

“We felt that two strikers could give us a better platform to attack, and I do think there were high points within that. But overall, we weren’t good enough. They were better than us, and technically, I thought they were superb.”