MIKE Williamson has revealed Newcastle United's players held a summit to get to the bottom of their poor form last week.

The United defender said the squad was still together in the wake of back-to-back home defeats which leave the team in the bottom half of the Premier League table for the first time this season.

That means a frank meeting of minds to digest their poor run.

He said: “The lads had a meeting during the week and everyone has put their thoughts across, and it’s just about continuing to work hard and carrying on and sticking together as a group.

“Everyone will go through tough periods in a season and this one is ours.

“It’s no secret our form and the results aren’t and haven’t been what we’d hoped.

“The fact is we’re looking at things, ways of improving, any different areas where we can progress, from the management to the players.

“That’s what we’re doing. We’re pulling together and that’s what you have to do when go through a difficult period.”

Williamson admitted to fears United might have been “found out” by certain teams.

He added: “I think it could be a factor in some ways.

“People have worked certain things out, like who our danger men are.

“There are certain times when there are two or three players on Hatem Ben Arfa, for example.

“It’s like a puzzle we all have to work out.

“The fact is we need to utilise our big players to the best of their ability, create different ways of attacking and work on being solid, too, because at the moment, we’re struggling to score goals and we’re leaking at the other end.

“So it’s not great, but it’s something everyone is working on extremely hard behind the scenes to try and correct.”

Although all of that might sound depressing, the defender did offer words of encouragement and said Newcastle would “dig deep” to return to winning ways.

Williamson said: “It has been tough so far and the last two results have been disappointing.

“It’s time to dig deep, you know, show our character, work hard on the training ground.

“We just continue what we’re doing and I’m sure the belief will come back.

“It’s only a matter of time because it’s not as if we’re doing anything different.

“It’s just that the results aren’t clicking at the minute, so we have to find the right formula like we did last year.”