Rafael Benítez revealed that Jonjo Shelvey had apologised after “letting everyone down” by collecting an inevitable red card for needlessly standing on Dele Alli’s ankle in an off-the-ball incident at St James’ Park on Sunday.
That transgression on the part of the Newcastle United midfielder – Benítez’s captain for the day – played a big part in the newly promoted side marking their return to the top tier with a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur.
Goals from Alli and Ben Davies – both scored after Shelvey’s 48th-minute dismissal – briefly assuaged Mauricio Pochettino’s disappointment at his board’s failure to reinforce his Spurs squad with a single new face this summer while dismaying his Newcastle counterpart.
“Jonjo knows he has made a mistake and he apologised in the dressing room afterwards,” said Benítez, who felt that Tottenham’s Harry Kane should have been shown a red rather than a yellow card for a first-half tackle on Florian Lejeune, which left the centre-half barely able to walk and unable to continue.
“The tackle from behind from Harry Kane was worse than what Jonjo did,” said Newcastle’s manager whose side defended very well until the sending-off. “But the rules are the rules and we paid for that. It’s not just me, Jonjo has let everyone down, we’ve talked about it for a while. If you want to win Premier League games you can’t lose focus for one minute.
“If we want to win Premier League games we have to do everything really well. I was happy with the effort of my players today and there were a lot of positives but all the effort we put in on the pitch was lost because we did one mistake.”
Mike Ashley made a rare appearance in the directors’ box but, asked whether he intended to have face-to-face discussions with Newcastle’s owner on Sunday night Benítez side-stepped the question. “I have to concentrate on my team,” said a manager openly “unhappy” at this lack of transfer market support this summer. “I don’t know if any signings are close but we know what we need and we know what we have to do.”
Although Pochettino is still waiting to welcome his first new face of the summer, Tottenham’s manager was considerably happier. “I’m very pleased,” he said. “It was important for us to get three points to change the memories of the last time we played here [when Spurs lost 5-1 in May 2016].
“Newcastle defended so deep it was difficult for us to find space in the first half but we played better in the second half and we would, of course, have won without the sending off.”
He expressed a certain sympathy with Benítez while disagreeing with him over Kane’s tackle. “I think it’s difficult,” Pochettino said. “Viewed from another side, it’s completely different. It’s not fair to say it merits the same punishment as Shelvey.”
After praising debutant right back Kyle Walker-Peters, the Argentinian dropped another hint about the need for reinforcements. “We need some new players,” he said. “We have a lot of games in the Premier League and the Champions League. We need more quality, more competition.”
