'Bad day at the office': Alan Shearer gives credit where credit's due as Aston Villa batter Newcastle United 4-1

Newcastle United had a bit of a blip on Saturday evening as the run of wins came to an abrupt end at the hands of an inspired Aston Villa side.

You could say that Aston Villa beat us at our own game. Bagging an early goal and applying the press, giving our players no time to do anything on the ball.

It was the third game in a week for our starting XI, and a seventh consecutive game unchanged, so it was asking a lot of our players to play with their usual intensity once again so soon after the last game.

That's no so much an excuse as a reason, I'd say. There were other things Jason Tindall could have done to mitigate what happened, a change in tactics, refreshing the lineup, but he was stuck between a rock and a hard place, really. If he'd changed the team, people would have questioned why he'd messed with a winning formula.

Alan Shearer's post-match tweet hit the nail on the head

There are games where your opponents are just better than you on the day, and this was one of those games. It was crushing watching them run rampant, but if we just look at it as 'one of those games', we can put it behind us and move on.

Alan Shearer had the right attitude at full time, posting on X that it was a bad day at the office for Newcastle.

"Well done Villa. Much the better team today. Scored 4 and should have been a lot more. Bad day at the office for the Toon #AVLNEW"

We're still going the right way despite this defeat

It would absolutely be easy to have a meltdown after seeing that scoreline, but Newcastle are still well in the mix for the Champions League, and can still finish second in the league.

We've got five big games left with some really tricky fixtures to come, so we can not let our heads go down after one bad result.

HOWAY THE LADS!!