Alan Shearer believes the Newcastle owners need to quickly appoint a new manager because the club are in a “big relegation battle” and the new boss has got a “massive job on”.
Yesterday’s 3-0 defeat to Chelsea at St James’ Park meant that Newcastle hadn’t won any of their opening 10 Premier League games.
The Magpies registered just one shot on target against Thomas Tuchel’s side and that came through wing-back Javier Manquillo.
Match of the Day host Gary Lineker asked Newcastle legend Shearer whether he felt there was a strong possibility that the richest club in the world could end up being the wealthiest team in the Championship.
Speaking on last night’s Match of the Day, Shearer said: “It’s a culmination of poor recruitment for years, barring a couple of players and dreadful retention of players, who are just not good enough, but it was cheaper to keep them, then replace them.
“They had five players out there [against Chelsea] who were in the Championship five years ago.”
The Premier League’s all-time top goalscorer understood why interim boss Graeme Jones set his side up in a defensive and pragmatic way, but he felt the system never allowed the Magpies to get out of their own half, or pose a threat to the Champions League holders.
Shearer believes that Newcastle are in a “big relegation battle” and that a new manager needed to be appointed “sharpish”.
Shearer added: “Whoever they are going to appoint they need to appoint them sharpish because they have got a massive job on.”
Newcastle travel to a high-flying and buoyant Brighton side in the last game before the November international break.
Unless the Saudi-led consortium make a decision quickly, it’s looking increasingly likely that the new manager won’t be in the dugout until the 20th November, which is a home clash against Brentford.
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