Mark Lawrenson has now criticised Newcastle for how they play

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Despite being axed by the BBC the world of football is still not rid of the opinions of former Newcastle United coach Mark Lawrenson.

It’s certainly fashionable at the moment to have a pop at Newcastle for their gamesmanship with Erik ten Hag leading the charge against Eddie Howe’s men and their ‘time wasting’ antics.

Now Mark Lawrenson has joined in the debate singling out Newcastle in his appearance on the Off The Ball podcast. Despite the fact that Lawrenson and the podcast hosts were talking about Arsenal, Lawro managed to pivot so that he could put the boot in on Newcastle.

They weren’t even talking about Newcastle!

They were discussing a moment in the Liverpool v Arsenal game where Aaron Ramsdale claimed to have an eye injury while the outfield players ran to Mikel Arteta for instructions, a similar thing to what Nick Pope and Newcastle have done this season. He was asked if this move is planned and Lawro said: “It is 100%. It’s very, very frustrating. It’s difficult for the referee.

“All of a sudden if they go down and stay down, then the ref has no other option. He might go over and say ‘are you alright’ to the player who’s injured and they’ll respond ‘no I’ve done this, or that.’

“That’s crept into football and, for me, it takes some of the fun away from it. All of a sudden, teams now realise and I’ll tell you who the worst are, I think, is Newcastle.

“Newcastle do it all the time now. In regards to next season, not wanting to wish away this season, in regards to the next season I think the Premier League are going to have a little bit of a look at this.

“Maybe even say ‘I tell you what, if you can walk, off you go’, and the game will go on and I think that would quickly stop it. It’s genuinely here all the time now.”

It’s not cheating if there’s nothing in the rules

Lawrenson claimed that it was taking the fun out of the game.

It’s not though, is it? It’s just a new way of getting your gameplan across to the players mid-game. We don’t have time-outs like in Basketball. Coaches and Managers get one opportunity to get their point across and that’s half time, but so much happens during the game and adjustments need to be made.

While there’s no rule against gamesmanship, coaches are going to exploit the loophole and more power to them for doing so. It’s not cheating if there’s no rule about it.