Alan Shearer is ruthless when naming Newcastle United players who have been poor this season
Alan Shearer was very critical of Nick Woltemade at the weekend after another paranormal performance for Newcastle United.
The German forward was like a ghost on the St James' Park pitch on Saturday as he managed just 14 touches all game. He might as well not have been there.
On Match of the Day, Alan Shearer said the 24-year-old wasn't good enough, and he backed that up again on The Rest Is Football podcast.
However, this time Shearer deflected a portion of the blame towards a handful of other players who haven't done their jobs for Newcastle in the Premier League this season.
Even Dan Burn wasn't safe from Alan Shearer's scorn
We certainly don't disagree with Shearer's choices, but we are surprised that he actually included Dan Burn. He feels like he's immune to criticism because everybody loves him.
"I feel as if, just because of his price tag, he's a centre forward and he is going to get a lot of the attraction. He is going to get a lot talked about him.
"I mean, there are other players who have been really poor in the league for Newcastle. Dan Burn hasn't been great, Nick Pope hasn't been great he made another error yesterday. Gordon hasn't been great in the league, in the Champions League, he's been superb.
"Harvey Barnes has dropped off a little bit but whether you like it or not, centre forward for £70million or £69million, whatever it is, he hasn't done enough. He's a conundrum for Eddie.
"In forward positions he hasn't got in the box enough, hence he's played Gordon. He's struggled with the physicality and pace of the Premier League, which, okay you knew that it might take time to adjust, which is why Eddie has put him into midfield.
"But no touches in the box in the last two games, not enough touches, not enough involvement. He's not the only one.
"They can't get through a low block, they can't get through teams that sit, that's their problem."
Newcastle United vs The Low Block
The low block is Newcastle's kryptonite, and we desperately need to bring in a player or a coach who knows how to break through those deep-lying defences.
Mind, the fact that both of our goals against Everton came from deflected shots just shows that my 'just bloody hit it' method works.
We've repeated it ad-nauseam on here this season that if we just take speculative shots when we can't pass through the lines, anything could happen, a deflected shot could go in, it could rebound to a forward who could poke it home, we could get a cheeky penalty for handball, or at the least, get a corner from which we've been decent this season. Not so much on Saturday, though, when we played a flawless game of "hit the first man".
