Newcastle United's Champions League win branded 'fragile' amid hiring Spanish coach claim

Eddie Howe's side were able to beat Athletic Bilbao 2-0, but sterner tests are coming

Newcastle United were able to beat Athletic Bilbao by a comfortable 2-0 scoreline on Wednesday night, continuing a good record in the competition - but some fans in the Chronicle Live comments section say that Eddie Howe's side weren't at their fluent best, and that they will need to rediscover it in time for the weekend's visit to Brentford.

Bilbao were downed by a pair of headers, with Dan Burn nodding home from a Kieran Trippier cross after just 11 minutes. Harvey Barnes enabled Joelinton to do much of the same early into the second half.

Howe must now find a way to translate routine victories like this back to the Premier League to silence the doubters. A trip to Brentford awaits on Sunday, and after a poor loss to West Ham last week, the team could do with a convincing win to get back on track.

Some fans say they aren't seeing the best out of their team yet. Reader Malaga01 says: "I'm happy with the win, but the game we showed didn't convince me. We need one more win and we'll advance with 12 points, our draw is quite difficult, but we have to do it.

"Last season it was a pleasure to watch how well we played, now something has gone very wrong. Among the new arrivals so far, only Thiaw can be highlighted. And our key players have also shown very fluctuating performances, except for Tonali, he's fantastic. I hope Howe comes up with something because our opponents will strengthen even more."

Commenter JohnnyPicasso writes: "Howe needs to hire a Spanish coach to sort our possession and creativity out, far too much sloppy football of late. The 1st half was painful to watch, great that we got a win, but when we're putting in bad performances it's hard to be happy."

Tekka says: "A lot of negativity here. Not the most fluent display but a good win. Trippier, Tonali and Thiaw were all very good and I thought Hall was excellent when he came on."

Davros92001 writes: "A valuable win, but in truth I wasn’t blown away by the performance. Sunday will be the test to see if we have learned anything from the West Ham game."

Petrus says: "Good win, and good to see Hall coming on. Elanga still looking for consistency. We simply have no one to come off the bench to hammer home a lead or change the game when it's needed. Brentford will be a much harder game, and Eddie should be looking at the strongest starting 11."

Bellhop calls for more ruthlessness from the team: "A good win. There is, however, a fragility within the team that needs to be addressed going into the future games. The habit of constant back passing to the defence when they were on the front foot.

"This back passing invites opponent to attack and swarm all over the Newcastle defence, not only creating pressure on the defence and the goalkeeper, but keeping the Toon attackers from getting the ball to score. I hope Eddie knows all about that. Good to see Pope catching the ball instead of punching, punching and punching the ball as he did against West Ham."

Mrsensible300 adds: "Well done, a win is a win, it could have very easily gone differently. Quite a lot of the passing was poor.

"Well done to big Joe for scoring a rare goal, he needs to start doing it in the Premier League. This win still doesn't remove the hurt from Sunday's defeat. If they beat Brentford away, it might start to heal the wound, but if we get beat we have big problems."

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