Gary Neville slams Arsenal man for ‘dangerous’ Newcastle United incident

Gary Neville has branded Kai Havertz’s tackle on Sean Longstaff during a feisty encounter at St James’ Park as ‘stupid’. Havertz put in a robust tackle on the Magpies midfielder just before the break which resulted in a multi-man melee between the two teams and the dugouts.

The incident seemed to spark St James’ Park into life and Neville believes Havertz was silly to ‘poke the bear’ and liven up the home crowd. Speaking on Sky Sports, Neville said: “What’s he doing? What is he doing? 

“I mean, Arsenal have got pretty decent control of the game, with and without the ball. The last thing you want to do is poke the bear.

“Declan Rice trying to calm things down. He [Havertz] was never there, it’s a stupid challenge. It’s just a stupid, stupid challenge. I think it was dangerous, personally. He was never getting there, he lunges in.”

VAR didn’t upgrade Havertz’s yellow card to a sending off, but the technology was heavily involved in Newcastle’s winner. Checks for the ball being out of play, a foul by Joelinton and an offside were all conducted but they eventually determined that no offence had been committed and a goal was awarded by Stuart Attwell.

That win moves the Magpies into 6th place in the Premier League table and inflicts Arsenal’s first league defeat of the season. They now head to Germany to face Borussia Dortmund in matchday four of the Champions League group stage aiming to avenge their defeat at St James’ Park in the reverse fixture less than a fortnight ago.