Chelsea star makes honest Newcastle United claim that fans will appreciate

Chelsea midfielder Conor Gallagher admits that Newcastle United were fully deserving of their 1-0 victory. Eddie Howe’s side claimed their fifth straight win and remained third in the Premier League table heading into the World Cup break.

Gallagher oversaw the Blues’ best opportunity of the evening when Nick Pope was at full stretch to keep out the 22-year-old’s bottom corner-bound effort. The save came at a key time for the Magpies, who opened the scoring a couple of minutes later through Joe Willock’s impressive strike.

Chelsea, without really testing goalkeeper Pope, applied some pressure in the latter stages but Newcastle held out for what Gallagher believes was a deserved three points.

He told Chelsea’s club website: “I don’t think we were good enough and I think Newcastle deserved to win. We’ve got to be better and we need to take a look at ourselves. Physically, they were stronger than us and a lot more intense and that’s something we need to improve on.

‘If we want to be challenging for titles and things like that, then we need to be so much better and Newcastle showed that. So we need to look at ourselves because we know there’s a lot to improve on.”

The 22-year-old. who will link up with Pope on England World Cup duty next week, felt he should have done better to beat the Magpies No.1. The Blues are nine points behind Newcastle in the table after losing three consecutive games for the first time since 2015.

“I thought it was a bit of a soft shot to be honest and knowing how big Pope is, he got across to cover the goal well,” Gallagher added. I was obviously hoping it would creep in, which would have been nice.

“When you’re not playing that well and you get a goal, it brings you back in the game and gives us a chance to go on and win the game. As it turned out, we conceded soon after that chance and that’s really disappointing from our perspective.”