DEFENSIVELY, Newcastle United march on. Saturday’s shutout at Selhurst Park means the Magpies have now conceded just 11 goals in their 20 league matches this season, with their latest clean sheet enabling them to set a new club record of six in a row in the top-flight. Chelsea’s record of conceding just 15 goals in the whole of the 2004-05 season is almost certainly not in danger, but the fact it is even being discussed underlines just how impressively Newcastle have defended in the first half of the campaign.

So far, so good, and with Eddie Howe’s side having extended their unbeaten league run to 15 matches at the weekend, it seems churlish to pick faults with their efforts. There are two sides to every football team though, and while Newcastle’s defending remains as effective as ever, their attack is providing increasing cause for concern ahead of the potentially season-defining Carabao Cup semi-final with Southampton that looms just around the corner.

Newcastle have scored just one goal from their last four league matches, three of which have ended in goalless draws, and aside from a Sven Botman header from a corner that flashed wide of the post, they did not really look like improving on that tally against Palace.

Callum Wilson has not scored for club or country since October, and looks some way off his best after battling against both injury and illness since he last found the net, Miguel Almiron’s remarkable scoring run that powered Newcastle through the autumn appears to have come to an end, and Alexander Isak is still finding his feet after spending more than three months on the sidelines.

Chris Wood’s departure has deprived Howe of an attacking option from the bench, and while Newcastle’s head coach is confident another forward will arrive before the end of the month, it is probably time to start questioning whether a change in tactics is also required. Opposition teams, sitting deep to negate Newcastle’s counter-attacking threat, appear to have worked the Magpies out. As well as shuffling his attacking personnel, might Howe have to tweak how he is lining up his forward players on the pitch in the second half of the campaign?

“I don’t think it’s the balance in the team, or the balance of how we’ve approached this run of games,” argued the Magpies boss. “We’ve been attacking, you could see that today. We’re pushing bodies forward all the time and trying to play football.

“We’re trying to take the game to the opposition – the lack of goals isn’t in our preparation or in our intent. But it’s difficult to score against well-organised Premier League defences, and Crystal Palace are a very good team.

“Whenever you’re not scoring, it’s a concern. We’re maybe not scoring in the numbers that we’d want to, but I don’t think there’s any concern about our style of play or how we’re trying to approach the games. I just think teams are giving us a lot of respect and putting a lot of men behind the ball.

“For the away team here to have the amount of possession and control we did is unusual. But credit to them for how they defended. It was a tight game, and teams will do that to us the more respect we get.”

Newcastle are undoubtedly coming up against opponents who are wary of their attacking strengths, but it can also be argued that Howe’s reluctance to change his preferred starting side is making the Magpies too predictable in the final third.

Allan Saint-Maximin hasn’t started since August, and while Bruno Guimaraes’ recovery from an ankle issue meant the Brazilian was always likely to start against Palace, perhaps Howe should have freshened things up with a couple of changes.

“I didn’t necessarily see a tired team today,” countered Howe “I saw a team that I thought was in a good place. Results obviously always change opinions, moods and feelings, but I was very pleased with the majority of what I saw. We tried to bring positive subs onto the pitch to try to win the game, it just didn’t happen.”