Understandably so.Alexander Isak sat out the opening weeks of the campaign, but the striker did not complete his British-record move to Liverpool until deadline day and replacements Yoane Wissa and Nick Woltemade are going to need time to fill the void for differing reasons.Wissa is a proven Premier League player, but the former Brentford forward is set to be out with a knee injury until after the next international break in October while record signing Woltemade is adjusting to the physicality of the top flight following his £69m move from Stuttgart.Though Woltemade got off the mark on his debut, against Wolves, there was a recognition behind the scenes that the German will understandably need an adaptation period.There were a couple of glimpses of Woltemade’s tidy link-up play against Bournemouth and, at one point, the new arrival wriggled away from Marcos Senesi down the right only to see his cross easily claimed by Petrovic.Woltemade also had a penalty appeal waved away in the second half after he had his shirt pulled by Bafode Diakite.But this was an afternoon where Newcastle, as an attacking force, struggled to fire.Newcastle actually had more touches (18) inside the opposition box than Bournemouth (16), but Djordje Petrovic ultimately had just one save to make – and that was in the opening stages when he kept out Jacob Murphy’s close-range shot.The game was finely poised when both sides made double attacking changes midway through the second half – Howe threw on Anthony Elanga and Harvey Barnes – but it was Bournemouth who were pushing for a winner late on.Howe was the first to recognise that Newcastle “didn’t get our attacking game going” as he reflected on his side not having a shot in the second half.”It’s not good,” he said “You want to create chances and clear cut chances.”
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Newcastle must add goals to clean sheets after another stalemate
