Eddie Howe could not hide his frustration after Newcastle United missed a golden opportunity to go fifth in the Premier League, drawing 0-0 with bottom club Wolves.

Newcastle knew a victory by more than one goal would see them climb above Manchester United in the table and into a potential Champions League spot, but they misfired at Molineux.

The Magpies did not have a single shot on target until Jose Sa made a relatively routine double save to deny Bruno Guimaraes and Joelinton in the 85th minute.

Their 12 total attempts – 10 of which missed the target – had an expected goals (xG) value of 0.88, and they have now played out four goalless draws in the Premier League this term.

That is four times as many as they recorded throughout the previous two campaigns combined (one in 2024-25, none in 2023-24).

"We tried, right to the end, to win that game," Howe told Sky Sports after full-time. "It was a game of frustration for us. 

"They played very low and minimised the space, and we had to have the intention of trying to win the game.

"We had a lot of the ball. I thought we didn't do enough with it; our cutting edge was missing. But I thought we played better the longer the game went on.

"I thought there were moments for us, there were goalscoring opportunities we didn't take. You're looking for either an individual moment from a player that can make the difference, or a set-play, just something to spark us into life.

"We had the chances, even right to the end, Bruno had a couple of moments, Joelinton had a couple of moments, but it just didn't fall for us."

Newcastle attempted 34 crosses throughout the game – their fourth-most in a Premier League fixture in 2025-26 – but only 10 found their target, and Howe says they did not show enough quality in the wide areas.

"I thought we put a lot of crosses in the box today, maybe we didn't fill the box well enough," Howe added. 

"There were a lot of balls going across the face of their goal, good height crosses where there was no one on the end of them. I'll have to review a few of those to see if our positioning could've been better.

"But on a day when we had so much of the ball around their box, we're looking at individual moments and, with the quality we possess, we should be doing better."

Wolves, meanwhile, are the first team to go four Premier League games unbeaten while bottom of the table since their arch-rivals West Brom did so in 2018 (five games in April and May), though they still appear doomed to suffer relegation, sitting 14 points adrift of 17th-placed Nottingham Forest.

However, boss Rob Edwards saw green shoots of recovery even before results started to turn, telling BBC Match of the Day: "It was a really committed performance. 

"People will look at the results and think it has clicked all of a sudden, but the performances were there before that.

"They have got very good players, but overall, the game went how we expected it to. I am really pleased with the clean sheet; we don't give too much away.

"We are not there yet; we understand there is a lot of work still. The boys are with it, the crowd were with us all throughout the game. We are making some good steps forward."