Steve Bruce has explained his thinking on tactics during the dire 1-0 defeat at Sheffield United.
The Magpies were beaten by the bottom side in the Premier League and barely laid a glove on the Blades on an awful night for the club at Bramall Lane.
Bruce named five at the back but the word before the game was that a front three was supposed to probe the struggling Yorkshire club.
When asked about tactics, Bruce said: "Too defensive in the approach?
"Well we have played the same sort of way and I have changed the personnel at the top end of the pitch to try to give us something a little bit different because we haven't scored enough or created enough.
"That was my thinking, playing Ryan Fraser and Sean Longstaff as two false number 10s instead of Miguel Almiron and Big Joe.
"Of course, because of the games we've had I tried to pick a team with a certain freshness.
"I wanted to see if something different would work.
"In hindsight what I needed was to get in at half-time to change things around but unfortunately the red card put pay to that."
