Former Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer has been speaking on Match of the Day 2 to lambast the officiating in the Toon’s latest Premier League game.
Eddie Howe’s side suffered their 10th defeat of the league campaign with Manchester City sealing a comfortable win against the relegation-battling Magpies.
Should this have been a penalty?
Yes
No
However, the former number nine was left seething with the decision from Martin Atkinson not to award the Toon with a first-half penalty which was not backed up by VAR.
Ryan Fraser found himself being wiped out inside the box by City’s goalkeeper, Ederson, as Joao Cancelo ran away with the ball but no penalty was the call on the pitch.
And Shearer voiced his honest verdict on the officiating of the game during the BBC’s highlights show on Sunday night:
(33:00) “We’ve already spoken about the two referees beforehand in the previous game, now it’s Martin Atkinson and Craig Pawson. Again, that for me and for everyone in the football world is simple. That is a penalty. Now we have been told that because Cancelo comes away with the ball that’s why they didn’t give it. Rubbish, absolute rubbish.
“That means you can just wipe someone out on a football field can you if they haven’t got the ball? It’s terrible for Martin Atkinson his position there he can see it clearly. It’s terrible from Craig Pawson. And it’s awful from Mike Riley’s. He’s got to sort his team out because the last few weeks for VAR and for the officials has been dreadful.”
“Everyone can see it. We’ve seen more than one today in the first game and we’ve seen that one today. It’s not acceptable.”
TIF Thoughts on the penalty call…
We were left absolutely stunned that Atkinson was unable to see the incident as a penalty in real-time, and we were even more amazed that the VAR did not intervene and direct Atkinson to view the incident on the pitchside monitor.
Pep Guardiola’s side dominated the game at St. James’ Park and you will probably find it difficult to find somebody who will disagree with that.
However, when you are slumped in the bottom three like Howe’s side are, you could do with everything going your way to get some points on the board and decisions like this should rightly leave everyone involved with the club furious.
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