Jonjo Shelvey has defended Ciaran Clark after his moment of madness in the 1-1 draw against Norwich City. The Ireland defender pulled back Teemu Pukki after just 10 minutes to pick up a red card. That meant Newcastle had to switch their game plan from offensive to defensive and ultimately were left to hang towards the end.
Jonjo Shelvey said: “I’m not going to criticise Ciaran [Clark]. If he doesn’t bring him [Teemu Pukki] down he goes through and scores. He’s probably earned us a point in the end. When you play against 11 men with 10 it’s really hard.”
Shelvey said that Newcastle battled hard but it wasn’t meant to be.
Jonjo Shelvey said: “Everyone stepped up to the plate. We’re confident we can get out of the situation we’re in. We’ve got a huge game Saturday. We’ll recover and go again. It’s a missed opportunity. We defended brilliantly throughout.Everyone to a man worked their socks off today. It’s unfortunate the red card early doors gave us a mountain to climb. We felt we deserved the three points.”
When asked if we was concerned by the club’s precarious position,
Jonjo Shelvey said: “I’m not really concerned because I know what we have in the dressing room. We just have to keep believing and stick together. Everyone is buzzing round the place. We’ll keep fighting for these fans.”
