Alan Shearer was not impressed with 23-year-old Newcastle man’s defending vs Brighton

Add as preferred source on Google

The fallout from Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Brighton continues with one Newcastle United player coming in for some serious scrutiny by Alan Shearer.

Brighton‘s opening goal of the game was an horrendous catalogue of errors by several Newcastle players which led to Evan Ferguson rifling the ball home for his first of three goals.

It all started with a poor clearance from Nick Pope who charged out of his area to sweep the ball away only to find a Brighton player. Kieran Trippier flung himself in front of Pervis Estupinan who easily found Kauro Mitoma who forced a brilliant stop by Pope. Unfortunately that save found Sandro Tonali who’s weak attempt at a clearance fell to Billy Gilmour who rifled the ball at Pope who instead of punching it away tried to catch it and fumbled. That fumble fell to Evan Ferguson who finished with aplomb.

Alan Shearer counted four errors leading to the first goal

There were several players at fault, something that was noted by Alan Shearer talking about the game with former Manchester United and England player Owen Hargreaves for Premier League Productions.

Speaking about the opening goal, the duo said (h/t Football365): “From Newcastle’s point of view, there were so many errors leading up to the goal there,” said Shearer.

“There is the first one, it has got to go. It’s so sloppy from Nick Pope. Then it’s Trippier diving in. Then, another mistake from Tonali and it was lazy on his part not to close it down, then another big error from Nick Pope. What’s that? Four errors leading up to the goal?”

Hargreaves added about Tonali: “I know what Sir Alex [Ferguson] would have said to me. I wouldn’t have played for a month if I did that. It’s quite simple really, you have to make clean contact – just clear your lines.”

There’s a lot more to come from Newcastle this season

I think Sandro Tonali will be spared the Alex Ferguson treatment of being dropped for a month, but I dare say Eddie Howe will have made it very clear that he should have been closing Gilmour down straight away.

There are clearly still kinks to be worked out for Eddie Howe, especially in finding how Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes can work together, but it’ll all come good in the end.

It’s also worth remembering that there are other new signings to bring into the side and a few players to return from injury, so there’s a lot more to come from this side.