Wayne Rooney disagreed with Alan Shearer’s plea for Newcastle United to defend their lead of their 1-1 draw with Barcelona within the Champions League on Tuesday night.
Eddie Howe’s side delivered a formidable performance against Barcelona at St James’ Park and seemed to be heading into next Wednesday’s second leg with a 1-0 advantage following Harvey Barnes’ goal within the 86th minute.
But Barcelona were awarded a penalty within the sixth minute of injury time which was scored by Lamine Yamal.
After Barnes’ opener, Newcastle continued to push for a second goal but Shearer believes Eddie Howe must have urged his players to guard their advantage.
Speaking after the sport, Shearer told Prime Sport: ‘They’ve done so many things right tonight, they defended really, rather well, they stopped that front three, they created probabilities but they didn’t take them.
‘But when the massive one got here along they did and I’m considering protect the sport and take to Barcelona what you’ve got.
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‘Even when Eddie was telling Dan Burn to go forward with 4 or five minutes left I used to be considering, ‘perhaps not, just sit in your lead’. I don’t know, I believed it was pretty naïve what they were attempting to do.
‘It could’ve made it a tad easier going there with 1-0 because they’re a really different outfit in their very own stadium, as Newcastle our in our own stadium with the way in which they press forward. Barcelona try this very, thoroughly. Newcastle have missed an enormous opportunity going there with a 1-0 lead.’
Rooney, nevertheless, believes Newcastle were right to push for a second goal to take to Barcelona next week.
‘Firstly I believed Newcastle were outstanding, I believed tactically Eddie Howe got his tactics spot on and Newcastle were the higher team and will have won by one or two goals,’ Rooney said.
‘But at this level when you don’t take your probabilities you then at all times leave the opposition the chance to attain and Barcelona did that.
‘I disagree, I believe you [Newcastle] must have went for it. Because 1-0 is a excellent rating line but to go there and check out to get the second goal I believe you may need that second goal.
‘Sometimes you pay the value for that. But I believe it was an excellent performance and you need to go there with confidence after this performance tonight since it was implausible.
‘I believe they might have taken a bit more care with the ball around Barcelona’s penalty box, the timing of the pass, the load of the past, that next step to get to the highest level I believe they simply missed ultimately and that’s the one thing that permit Newcastle down.
‘Knowing you might have to go to Barcelona and you might have to win the sport to undergo is a unique feeling and they’ll feel a bit of little bit of deflation but I believe what they’ve done tonight is shown they belong, they’ll compete at this level and Barcelona will probably be considering they weren’t expecting that.
‘It is going to be a unique game next week I believe Newcastle can have to remain front-footed, attempt to replicate this performance, I do know that’s difficult, but in the event that they can get anything like tonight’s performance I believe they’re in with a probability.’
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