Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew has accepted that his side’s defending during their 3-2 defeat to Everton last night, was nowhere near good enough for the Premier League.
Two goals from Romelu Lukaku and one from Ross Barkley gave The Toffees a 3-0 lead at half-time after a dominating opening 45-minutes against The Magpies.
However, the visitors sparked to life in the second-half, but goals from Yohan Cabaye and Loic Remy were not enough to snatch them a point.
After the game, Pardew bemoaned his side’s defending but believes they showed a bit of character in the second-half.
“The goals were poor, so poor, in the first half, and defensively we’ve got to better than we are at the moment,” Pardew told Sky Sports.
“But we’ve got goals in the team, and we’ve shown that tonight. We had numerous chances apart from the two goals we’ve scored, but we’ve got to tighten up, that’s for sure.
“Nothing went right for us and the inconsistency being shown was disturbing at one point. We managed in the second half to get ourselves a little better balanced in the team to make some sort of game of it.
“We came out with a bit of pride and almost at the end got more than that, but the goals in the first half were not acceptable for me, and we’re going to have to tighten up and make a couple of changes there.”
Written by Alex Batt – @AlexBatt
