Newcastle United defender Jamaal Lascelles has hit out at Arsenal midfielder Jorginho, who was captain for the day in this weekend’s Premier League clash at St James’ Park.
Jorginho had the captain’s armband due to the absence of the injured Martin Odegaard, but Lascelles was clearly far from impressed with how the Italy international conducted himself.
Newcastle won a fiercely contested game 1-0 thanks to a controversial second half goal from Anthony Gordon, and it’s perhaps not too surprising that several Arsenal players were unhappy with how things went.
Still, Lascelles feels that doesn’t excuse the poor professionalism of someone like Jorginho, who apparently didn’t want to shake hands afterwards.
Lascelles says he was fuming with Jorginho, though it clearly also made the win over the Gunners that bit sweeter for him.
“I was fuming, it’s not on. I would never refuse to shake an opposition captain’s hand, no way. You can have as many arguments as you want on the pitch but shake hands at the end, it’s part of the sport,” he said, as quoted by the Daily Mirror.
”For me, whatever happens on the pitch – handbags or whatever – you show sportsmanship and shake hands afterwards. He didn’t do that, so I’m so glad we beat them. Players like that, I don’t think it’s acceptable.
“A lot of them walked in but I went up to him to shake his hand but he didn’t want to – and he’s their captain! There was a lot of that in the game but that’s football and we managed it well and kept our cool.”
It will be intriguing to see how this result impacts the race for the top four as one imagines both these teams will be right up there competing for what looks like could be a very close battle for any of those spots between second and fifth.