Steve Bruce has urged his side to stop gifting opponents possession but admits the Covid outbreak is still affecting Newcastle United.
The Magpies saw Fulham claim up to 62% possession in the first half of their 1-1 draw at St James' Park meaning it's just one point from a possible six against two of the newly promoted sides.
Bruce admitted Newcastle weren't good enough after the game, and said: "When you keep surrendering the ball the way we did – we had a spell up to the last 15 minutes or whatever it was where we kept giving the ball away.
"Unfortunately we did that too often against Leeds and if you do that at this level, then you're going to have a struggle, so we have to look after the ball better, we have to be better with it and without it and certainly in the last week in particular, we've had a difficult time.
"I don't want to make excuses, but we've had a remarkably difficult time an when you're having to make substitutions at half-time through illness, it's difficult.
"It's been a juggling act as I've said, we've found it very difficult."
Newcastle were forced to take off Federico Fernandez at half-time with the defender complaining he was feeling the effects of his recent absence while Emil Krafth stated before the game he'd been wiped out by the virus in recent times.
Bruce added: "Look, we didn't play well enough, we didn't play well enough the other night, but the last thing I want to do is make excuses.
"But look, we are still without five or six, of course, it's impacted us and it's not just them getting back, it's the after-effects that unfortunately the illness leaves on them.
"We've still got a lot of work to do to make sure everybody is okay, so I have to take that into account.
"I tried to make five changes to make sure that we were fresh enough, but we've got improve, there's no disputing that, especially that period just before half-time where we were lucky to get away with it.
"We just kept giving the ball away repeatedly and not doing enough to get it back either."
