Alan Shearer pulls no punches with 'rotten' assessment to Newcastle United stars

Alan Shearer has branded Newcastle United's showing at Fulham as "rotten" and believes that political unrest at St James' Park isn't helping matters.

The legendary number 9 has weighed in on the awful 3-1 loss at Craven Cottage and feels that unless Newcastle address the tensions between Eddie Howe and sporting director Paul Mitchell the whole club will suffer. Giving his view on the poor show in the capital, Shearer told The Rest is Football podcast: "They were rotten for the first half, they were dreadful. I know they’ve had the results, three wins and a draw before [Saturday's] game, but it was a bit of a reality check.

"They hadn’t played well, really all season. They were getting through games and we were saying about their team spirit. That has be a good sign, once they start playing well then things will click.

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"They didn’t deserve anything [against Fulham] and were really poor. They changed it up second half and there was a little bit of an improvement, but Fulham were miles better and deserved to beat Newcastle."

Howe will face the media once again on Friday when the subject of Mitchell is undoubtedly set to come up again. In a week in which the former Monaco supremo has been doing the rounds behind the scenes in other departments, such as the scouting network and the NUFC Women's team, there have been reports of clear the air talks.

But nothing has been confirmed on the record, and Shearer said: "We’ve said it before about the sporting director and Eddie.

"Unless that gets sorted out somehow, it will affect performances on the pitch... it always does. Whatever happens off the pitch in terms of the boardroom or whatever, it eventually comes down and that needs to be sorted out."