We need to be perfect against league leaders, insists Howe

The visitors have won all of their last seven Premier League matches - including a 7-0 thrashing of Leeds United in their last outing - and the Magpies' head coach is under no illusions as to the size of his team's task against Pep Guardiola's men.

United performed well against second-placed Liverpool on Thursday night, despite eventually losing 3-1 at Anfield, but Howe feels his players will need to be even better against the Citizens - while they will also be hoping for a change of fortune after seeing a string of refereeing decisions go against them in recent weeks. 

Asked if it required a 'perfect performance' in order for Newcastle to get anything from the game, Howe replied: "Yeah, I think it does.

"I thought there were elements of the Liverpool performance that were very good - and I'm sorry to go back to it, but the first goal (where Isaac Hayden was down with a head injury as play continued) changes the game dramatically. We don't know what would have happened to that match if that moment hadn't happened.

"Up to that point, I don't think we were perfect but I thought we were very good, and very effective at what we were trying to implement to the game.

"Now we're going to need the same mentality, first and foremost, in preparation for the game. The players have to commit to what we ask them to do."

He added: "I think the challenge that we face with these two games (Liverpool and Manchester City) is that the reality is we're going to be without the ball for long periods of time, and I think that then the physical effort and exertion of the players is really tested.

"We lost Jamal Lewis from the game against Liverpool early in the match, which was obviously a big blow to us because he's athletically so good, and a lot of the other players that we had on the pitch were suffering with fatigue, just due to the fact that we were, as I say, without the ball for long periods.

"So it's a unique challenge for us, these two games back-to-back. The fact that we're at home with the crowd with us hopefully will inspire us, but we're going to need to potentially rotate the team and make sure that the team that takes the pitch is as fresh as it can be."

Howe - who will be without the injured Lewis and Federico Fernández against Manchester City - rested leading scorer Callum Wilson at Anfield and brought Ryan Fraser, Isaac Hayden and Jacob Murphy into the starting XI, with Miguel Almirón and Joe Willock also dropping to the bench. 

And the head coach explained: "If you're giving players opportunities, and they want to play football - which they all do - they have to perform well.

"I thought the three players were effective for us. I thought Ryan gave everything to the match physically; he really did help first Jamal with Mohamed Salah and then Matt Ritchie. I thought he performed a really admirable job. We'd love to have seen him with more ball into the attacking half but it probably wasn't meant to be in that game. 

"Isaac, again, put in an incredible shift defensively and Jacob could be really pleased with his performance in terms of his physical output. So all three players contributed to the team performance."

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