The Magpies’ heavy defeat to Manchester City has put their Champions League hopes in jeopardy.
Despite missing out on January reinforcements, Howe remains optimistic about the squad’s potential.
Howe told Chronicle Live: "We've had a really good winning mentality to our performances. Even when we didn’t play well. That was only very recently.
"Confidence is a key thing and availability of key players is a key thing – we missed Joelinton’s duel-winning ability and Sven Botman’s physical presence. All these things matter. "
Howe added: "I don’t necessarily think it’s the stadium, I think it’s more about the players you’re playing against. But 100 per cent, we have to embrace these challenges much better than we did today because we want to get to a place where we can compete toe to toe against any team in the Premier League.
"We’ve tried to do that with our approach, but I don’t think we looked anywhere near as competitive as we want to be or have been previously. We’ve lost games here, but the games have looked slightly different. Today, was a step back in that respect."