Newcastle United captain Jamaal Lascelles has admitted that his side didn’t give on-loan striker Islam Slimani a chance to impress on his full debut against Everton on Monday night.
The Magpies saw their four-match winning streak brought to a close following Theo Walcott’s only goal of the game, where Slimani started for the first time.
On-loan Algeria striker Slimani has struggled for fitness since moving to Newcastle in January and now has a very short space of time to prove himself to Rafael Benitez, in order to potentially earn himself a permanent switch.
Quoted by The Chronicle, Lascelles praised the 29-year-old striker and said:
“He’s a good player and he settled in really well against Arsenal. He worked hard for us at Everton and they made it hard for us to play and to give him good service. You can’t point the finger at anybody because we win as a team and lose as a team.”
“We didn’t really get the chance to get the ball down and play or get up the pitch. Sometimes you’ve just got to hold your hands up and say fair play to Everton, because we gave our all.”
