The Newcastle United coaching staff were not happy with Lewis Hall’s defending against Bournemouth last weekend – which may have led to him being dropped against Arsenal on Saturday. 

How fearful are you of an actual relegation battle after Newcastle’s defeat to Arsenal? 😧

Indeed, Hall was substituted at half-time during Newcastle’s defeat to Bournemouth, in what Howe later described as a “tactical” decision.

A generous reading of that is that Newcastle changed shape without him. A more cynical view is that Hall- despite his obvious excellence this season – was playing poorly.

Dan Burn was then selected over the England defender at the Emirates Stadium and Craig Hope of The Daily Mail shared some further insight as to the thinking behind the scenes.

Newcastle didn’t think Hall’s defending was ‘acceptable’ vs Bournemouth

Hope said while speaking on a video posted on YouTube: “Eddie Howe makes this [team vs Arsenal] selection based on height. Four big guys [Burn, Sven Botman, Malick Thiaw and Lewis Miley] at the back.

“Lewis Hall out. Now, Lewis Hall, there’s a little bit of debate as to that selection. Hall defensively hasn’t been good enough in recent weeks, he was brought off last week at half-time against Bournemouth because Newcastle just didn’t think it was acceptable, from what I hear, in terms of Rayan going by him and putting the ball on the plate there.”

Is Eddie Howe right to call this performance a ‘big step forward’? 👀

I’ll be seeing that Wissa miss in my nightmares!

Hall is one of very few Newcastle players to have emerged from this most miserable of seasons with any credit, so the fact he was dropped after a couple of poor performances is likely to split opinion.

While it is true that he could have defended better at times, Howe’s continued loyalty to other underperforming players over a much greater length of time cannot be ignored.

Burn’s struggles at left-back have been well-documented and while he wasn’t torn apart on Saturday way down in north London, relying on him there is hardly ideal.

It would be foolish to criticise Howe for loyalty and then do the same when he does eventually drop a player for a poor performance, if that is indeed what happened with Hall.

However, and assuming that really is the case, it’s hard to not see an element of muddled thinking here.

It took an age to drop the likes of Nick Pope, for example, following a series of errors across autumn and into winter.

Frankly, so little about this team right now makes any sense. The season could yet get much worse from here.