'Absolutely fantastic': Alan Shearer praises Newcastle United star who was 'best player on the pitch by a mile' on Sunday
Alan Shearer was in attendance at St James' Park on Sunday, watching his beloved Newcastle United start off 2026 with three points after beating Crystal Palace 2-0.
While it wasn't a dominant display by any means, it was more controlled, and by that I mean that we never looked like losing.
We dominated against Manchester United and came away with nothing, but against Palace, we slowed it down, played our own game and were never chasing. We created chances, and it felt like a case of when and not if we were going to score.
There were a few players who put in top shifts on Sunday, and a couple who were below par that probably contributed to the fact that we never truly dominated the game.
Lewis Miley was 'bloody brilliant' according to Alan Shearer
Speaking on The Rest Is Football podcast, Alan Shearer named a few players he thought were excellent on Sunday, but he reserved the highest praise for our Player of the Match, Lewis Miley, saying he was 'absolutely fantastic'.
"I was at St James' Park to watch Newcastle beat Palace.
"It wasn't easy and they had to work hard for it but they were the better team and they did deserve the three points. Joelinton, I thought, played a lot better, Bruno Guimaraes was very good, Malick Thiaw was excellent again.
"But the best player on the pitch by a mile was young Lewis Miley in the right-back position. Honestly, guys, he was absolutely fantastic. He never put a foot wrong, he was brilliant.
"I think he attempted 59 passes of which every single one of them was successful. He was bloody brilliant."
Alan Shearer rightly says Newcastle aren't 'back' just yet
Micah Richards asked Shearer if Newcastle are back, with the former number 9 saying that we're not quite at the dizzy heights we once were, but we're getting there.
We'd say we've got a long way to go yet to get back to the pinnacle of what we can do, but after this season, we're just happy to be getting points on the board again.
As long as we keep picking up the wins and climbing the table, we can start to worry about the attractive football later. Let's just get the fundamentals right first.
