Keith Downie believes Newcastle United were fortunate to see the opposition reduced to 10 men on Thursday night.
The Toon came into the game on the back of their first defeat since 2021 in the Premier League after their valiant efforts against Chelsea came up fruitless.
Was it a red card or yellow?
Red
Yellow
And Eddie Howe’s side suffered their second defeat inside a week against the struggling Everton despite playing the latter stages of the game against 10 men.
It was Allan who was shown a straight red card after VAR deemed his challenge on Allan Saint-Maximin as being worthy of more than the initial yellow card shown by Craig Pawson.
Ultimately, the red card had no effect on the outcome as the Toffees stole the points deep into stoppage time but it will be a case of a huge opportunity missed for Howe’s side.
It was apparent the Sky Sports reporter for the Toon was not convinced by Pawson’s decision to change his initial yellow card into a straight red after checking the VAR monitor:
“Newcastle probably due a bit of VAR luck going their way, but that was never a red card for Allan,” tweeted Downie after the sending off.
TIF Thoughts on Downie’s comments…
Once the referee went to the monitor the majority of fans will have known what the outcome was going to be and it will have come to the delight of the Newcastle fans.
We think it was probably a case of the slow-motion replays making it look worse than it actually was, however, had Saint-Maximin’s foot been planted then it could have resulted in a serious injury.
Regardless of whether Howe’s side were lucky or not, they certainly weren’t good enough and there should be questions asked about the defending in the lead up to the winning goal.
In other news: Journalist reveals touchline incident which sent Newcastle supporters mad