Frank Lampard makes Anthony Gordon ‘fear’ claim after Everton’s defeat to Newcastle

Frank Lampard rued that Everton were not awarded a penalty in their 1-0 loss to Newcastle United.

The Toffees slipped to a third successive loss at St James’ Park, with Magpies forward Miguel Almiron scoring the only goal in the 31st minute.

However, Lampard believes Everton should have been given a spot-kick - or at least a VAR review should have taken place - when Anthony Gordon went down inside the area under pressure from Newcastle defender Dan Burn shortly before half-time.

And he’s worried that because Gordon has been accused of diving in the past, it is why the decision went against the visitors.

Everton boss Lampard said: “My fear with that is everybody is looking at Anthony (Gordon) and rejecting any penalty straight away.

“If it’s a foul or a nudge in the back or a touch on the foot, for me that’s a penalty. I think VAR’s there to re-look. Clear and obvious. It’s a grey area we don’t need. It’s a penalty or it’s not and I felt it was a foul personally.”

Everton were unable to really test Newcastle keeper in the second half and Lampard admitted his side lacked cutting edge.

He said: “The performance was OK, I thought it was a tightly contested game in general play. We weren’t clinical enough as we should have been considering how much we played through them.

“Against a good team, it was a close match in general play possession-wise. Disappointing that we didn’t have that more effect in the box as we could have drawn or won the game.

“The goal is sloppy from our point of view. It’s a transitional goal where we allow space on the edge of the box. It’s a quality goal but maybe there’s a decision that should have gone in our favour.”