Dan Burn says Newcastle must learn to win ugly again

Dan Burn has warned Newcastle they will have to rediscover their talent for the “ugly” side of the game if they are to compete on all fronts this season.

The Magpies head into Wednesday night’s Champions League clash with Athletic Bilbao at St James’ Park on the back of a dismal performance in Sunday’s 3-1 Premier League defeat at West Ham, which extended their miserable domestic away run and was in stark contrast to their form in Europe.

Defender Burn, one of the standard-bearers for what the club has achieved in the last four years, struggled to identify a reason for the inconsistency but did come up with a possible solution.

He said: “It’s hard. If I knew it, I’d do it. It’s frustrating.

“It comes down to mentality. The manager will look at that and I’m sure he will come up with a plan on what we can do better and how we can win games.

“Probably be a bit more ugly with stuff. We were well known a few years ago for… I won’t say the word, but something-housery.

“If you go away from home, sometimes it’s important not to get beaten as well, pick up points and keep yourself ticking along. As long as you’re winning your home games and not getting beaten away, it’s better. But we have not done that well enough.”

Burn described the post-mortem conducted since an awful day at the London Stadium as “very painful” amid concerted criticism, although he revealed he now handles that better than he did when he was younger.

The England international said: “I feel it affects me less now. To be perfectly honest, I really don’t care what anybody thinks, genuinely. As long as my team-mates have that respect for me and know that I’m doing things well and the manager does, then everybody else’s opinion doesn’t really matter.

“I feel like I just control what I can control and everything else will take care of itself.”

Burn and his team-mates will have an early opportunity to right the weekend’s wrongs against a Bilbao side missing influential brothers Inaki and Nico Williams.

Head coach Eddie Howe, who will make a late decision on skipper Bruno Guimaraes after he trained away from the group on Tuesday because of illness, knows just how important the fixture could be ahead of trips to Marseille and Bayer Leverkusen.

Howe said: “It’s a really important game for us because we know what we have ahead in the Champions League. But that’s not to say that this game is going to be easy either.

“We are back at home, we love playing here as we say many times, but Athletic Club will provide stiff opposition. They’re a very good defensive team – their defensive numbers are very, very strong. Off the ball, they’ve delivered this year some really strong performances in particular.

“From that side, our attacking game is going to have to be at its very best, and of course Champions League nights here are always very special.”

Bilbao boss Ernesto Valverde, in his playing days, missed out on both legs of the club’s 1994 UEFA Cup tie against Kevin Keegan’s Magpies which they won on away goals.

Former striker Valverde said: “I was injured, I was on crutches. I wasn’t featuring. My aim as a player was to play in Europe and I only played in one game.

“I wasn’t here, but I experienced the atmosphere in San Mames on my crutches. It was an amazing atmosphere, I remember.

“I’d love it if we could repeat the result.”