Crystal Palace 2-1 Newcastle United: Jean-Philippe Mateta scored a stoppage-time penalty to condemn Newcastle to another defeat.
Newcastle United conceded twice late on at Crystal Palace to fall to another Premier League defeat.
William Osula put the visitors in front at Selhurst Park before substitute Jean-Philippe Mateta equalised with 10 minutes of normal time remaining, before Newcastle conceded a penalty in stoppage time.
Sven Botman was penalised for pulling Jefferson Lerma’s shirt as referee Andy Madley pointed straight to the penalty spot with no VAR intervention required.
Mateta stepped up and converted a 94th-minute winner for the Eagles from 12 yards.
Despite Lerma going to ground easily, the replays showed Botman clearly pulling the Crystal Palace midfielder’s shirt.
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NUFC boss on ‘soft’ penalty as VAR stays silent
When asked about the penalty decision, Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe admitted it was ‘soft’ but would have been hard for VAR to intervene and overturn.
“I think it's a soft penalty, but once the referee gives it, I don't think he's going to overturn it,” Howe admitted. “Sven has a piece of the shirt of Lerma. I don't think it's necessarily too much, but it happened and it was a poor goal to concede.”
Goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale went the right way for Mateta’s penalty but called out the inconsistent nature of the crucial penalty call.
“I haven’t seen the penalty back,” he said. “From my angle, straight away there was a bit of jostling, but it’s one of them, if that gets given I think two or three get given every game.
“It’s one of them where in the middle of the pitch you probably see it get given, but you don’t normally in the box.”
‘Some positives’ for NUFC?
Reflecting on the match itself, Howe added: “I think 60 minutes into the game, we were pretty comfortable. Aaron's made a good double save in the first half, but apart from that I thought we controlled the game.
“And the disappointing thing for our perspective is we didn't create more, we didn't have more shots. Certainly we've turned down a few long-range shooting opportunities, so that was disappointing for us. But we scored a great goal and we got our noses in front, which is the hardest thing to do. But we didn't really capitalise on that.
“There wasn't that authority and confidence in that second half to say, let's go on and score more. But I thought there were some positives in the performance today, but it gets lost in the result.”
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