'We need to get ugly and bully teams like Arsenal': Dan Burn's message to Newcastle stars after Eddie Howe laid into flops for West Ham debacle

Dan Burn wants Newcastle to be more like Arsenal and rediscover their ’s***housery’ - and has warned his team-mates it’s no good only turning up on the big Champions League nights.

The Magpies host Athletic Bilbao in Europe’s top competition on Wednesday, just three days on from their no-show during a 3-1 defeat at West Ham. They last won away in the Premier League in April and currently lie 13th in the table.

And Burn has given an honest appraisal of where his team are at on the road, admitting that Eddie Howe was right when he said their performance at the London Stadium was indefensible.

‘I agree (with Howe),’ he said. ‘Normally, if you have a bad game and one or two players aren't playing well then you can carry that, but you can see pretty much the full team had an off day.

‘We let ourselves down. We really wanted to make amends for the away form and push on and that didn't happen. The frustrating thing is we have the Champions League tomorrow and everyone knows we will turn up for that game and the crowd will be buzzing and we'll be buzzing and at it. It's about replicating those performances away.

‘It's very easy to get up for these games and play in these Champions League nights, but Brentford (this weekend) is the type of game where you really need to earn your money and turn up and perform. We have lads in there who can do it and will do it and a squad that fights for each other, but we're just not putting in those performances away from home.

‘The years we've done well, the year we first qualified for the Champions League, we weren't always playing great away from home but we always picked up results. Maybe we need to do more of the ugly side of the game that we were known for at the time, and we might have come away from that.

‘We were well known a few years ago for – I won’t say the word, but something housery. We could go ugly and bully teams and that was the way we went about it. But as you progress and want to push on, you move away from that because you bring in better quality players and play better football, but there’s always a place for that in the game.

'Arsenal are quite good at doing that but are playing very good football and are top of the league. It’s important you mix things up but sometimes, especially on Sunday, we have been a little bit too nice when we could have been a bit more compact and resilient.’

Meanwhile, Burn has addressed some of the criticism that was aimed at him following the defeat by West Ham. The England star was outstanding at centre back at the start of the season and has deputised at left back because of injuries in recent weeks.

 ‘I still think I’ve been playing pretty well, the West Ham game aside,’ he said. ‘I feel I’ve put in good performances at left back. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a very different style of full back to Tripps (Kieran Trippier), Tino (Livramento) or Lewis Hall. I won’t produce the same things they do. But the manager thinks I can do what he wants me to do in that position.

‘I want to play centre half. That is my best position. I was player of the year last season in that position. But I just want to play football and, if the manager thinks I can help the team playing there - and obviously we’ve had some injuries in that position - then I’m happy to do that.’

Burn added: ‘I feel it (outside noise) affects me less now. To be perfectly honest I really don’t care what anybody thinks, genuinely, as long as my team-mates have that respect for me and know that I’m doing things well and the manager does, then everybody else’s opinion doesn’t really matter.

‘I understand that, there will always, whatever I do, be people’s opinion who says this person shouldn’t be playing or I shouldn’t be playing for England. I feel like I just control what I can control and everything else will take care of itself.

'I feel like wherever I’ve been there's been centre-halves brought in, or players in my position, that have been brought in to take it, and I'm still here. I feel like I've built up a fair amount of credit with my performances for Newcastle since I've been here, so I'm confident that I'll continue to play.’