The Magpies head for Aston Villa in the fourth round on Saturday still dealing with the on-field fall-out of Alexander Isak’s £130million departure for Liverpool and the arrivals of Anthony Elanga, Aaron Ramsdale, Malick Thiaw, Jacob Ramsey, Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa which surrounded it.

Howe said: “The words ‘patience’ and ‘understanding’, they’re rarely accepted, I think, in football management when you’re talking about your team. People want clarity on where you are, they want to know whether you’re good or bad. In the middle isn’t accepted.

“Don’t get me wrong, we could have done better and there are certainly things that we could improve, but I think longer term we’ll be better for it if we can work through this season and this period.

“The biggest thing is to find a clear identify and a clear way of playing, and then we can see what the future looks like with this team. If it’s positive then that could be a great thing.”

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