Alan Shearer told Premier League Productions (15/08/21 at 3:55 pm) that West Ham didn’t deserve a penalty during Newcastle’s 4-2 defeat at St James’ Park on Sunday.
Even though Newcastle opened the scoring – and were also leading 2-1 at one stage – they suffered an opening weekend defeat to David Moyes’ side in front of a packed-out home crowd.
When the scores were level at 2-2, the referee adjudged that Jacob Murphy, who had scored Newcastle’s second goal, fouled Pablo Fornals in the penalty area as he was looking to pull the trigger.
Upon VAR reviewing that call, the on-field decision stood and Michail Antonio’s saved spot-kick was rebounded in by the charging Tomas Soucek.
But Shearer wasn’t happy with the call and thinks Martin Atkinson was ‘far too keen’ to point to the spot.
“I didn’t think it was a penalty,” said Shearer. “That changed the game slightly.
“I just think that wasn’t a penalty at all. Despite saying yesterday that the referee’s had a really good weekend, I think he has gone and spoilt it.
“Under the new laws, the high bar for contact, there’s no way. He takes the ball there, so it wasn’t a penalty – he is far too keen to get to his whistle.”
There will be some annoyance from Steve Bruce that the penalty changed the tide of the game against them.
But they did take the lead on two occasions and they failed to keep hold of that, even though Bruce is known to be a pragmatic coach.
That’s what will probably frustrate him more because Newcastle aren’t known to be a free-scoring team and they can’t afford to concede goals in such a manner this season because they won’t be going anywhere far.
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