£4m Newcastle man suffers disaster as he plays his part in record-breaking night for international football

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One Newcastle United man suffered a disaster this week as he ended up on the wrong side of history in a record-breaking night for footbal.

Newcastle fans have become all too used to watching their team find creative ways to conceded this season having been shipping goals for fun in the last few months.

A lot of the criticism has been on Martin Dubravka who again suffered a disappointing defeat and a night to forget while on international duty with Slovakia.

The 35-year-old shot-stopper conceded just six seconds from kick-off with Christoph Baumgartner finding the back of the net in the fastest ever time at international level.

Newcastle man suffers embarrassing night with Slovakia

As the game kicked off it looked like Slovakia’s players weren’t quite ready to start the game as Baumgartner dribbled past about four or five of them with ease.

Newcastle have watched some poor defending from their team this season, but this was a whole other level as it looked like schoolboys trying to defend against a top professional side.

Dubravka wasn’t clear of criticism, however, as many were disappointed in the keeper’s slow reaction time to get down low and try to stop the shot, something he’s struggled with all season.

The £4m player has been really poor at times despite pulling off some top saves in games against Liverpool and Blackburn, but ultimately Newcastle are desperate for the return of Nick Pope.

Pope the biggest miss for the Magpies this season

In a campaign in which Newcastle have suffered injuries to pretty much every key player at some point, it is Pope who they have really missed the most these last few months.

The goalkeeper suffered a shoulder injury against Man United at the start of December and hasn’t played since, though it’s understood that he’s expected to return at some point in April.

It’s not just shot-stopping that he is much better than Dubravka at, it’s pretty much every other area of his game as well as he often goes under the radar as being a top sweeper keeper.

Because he’s not the greatest with the ball at his feet, Pope’s ability to claim crosses, be dominant from set-pieces and be quick off of his line to help out his defender is hugely undervalued and fans have just started to realise how big of a blow his injury was.