Newcastle have been heavily criticised after written journalists were denied the chance to speak to players following the derby defeat to Sunderland at St James’ Park, with Anthony Gordon eventually breaking that silence on the club’s official website.

Eddie Howe’s men crashed to a 2-1 defeat to their local rivals in the Tyne-Wear derby on Sunday, with Brian Brobbey scoring a last-minute winner to cap a bad few days for the Magpies after they also shipped seven goals in the Champions League loss at Barcelona.

After the loss to Sunderland, Newcastledecided not to put players forward in the mixed zone at St James’ Park, with written journalists instead pointed towards the club’s official website interview with Gordon for post-match player reaction.

Supporters and journalists wanting answers from players were silenced and instead limited to listening to a controlled in-house interview or those from broadcast rights holders like Sky Sports.

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That decision was immediately slammed on social media, with the Sunderland Echo‘s James Copley writing on X: “Newcastle United have not put a player forward for interview by the written press after their loss to Sunderland.

“I think that’s appalling. You have to front up after a performance like that and speak to your fans.”

That post sparked an immediate response from NewcastleWorld‘s Jordan Cronin, who added: “This is weak. Fans deserve answers.”

Fans did get answers in the end when Gordon, who gave Newcastle an early lead in the game, was the only Magpies star to speak to any media of any kind.

In an interview with the club’s website, he said: “Not good enough really. No excuses. We were good for [just] 45 minutes which has been the case too often this season.

“It’s something we knew going into the game and something we have been trying to work on this season. Not good enough [our] start to the second half, they were the better team in the second half.

“We had chances, we had some good play in the first half, but to be honest, I don’t think we showed our quality.”

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On whether losing this game is harder to take than suffering the same fate in the reverse fixture back in December, Gordon added: “It’s probably worse. Both are just as bad but the way we lost the game, we went ahead 1-0, the way we were playing, I thought they were really poor. And then we let them into the game and basically gave them the win.

“The frustrating thing is, in my opinion, they’re not a very good team, compared to us. We shouldn’t lose to them.

“Away is obviously more difficult because they have their fans and the atmosphere but at home we should not lose that game. Not with the first half that we had, but again we have not been good enough with the start to second halves and it’s an ongoing problem.”