Newcastle United

Rafael Benitez: 'We cannot afford to continue making mistakes'

By Daniel Lewis, Senior Reporter | 07 November 2017

Rafael Benitez warns his Newcastle United players that, unlike last season in the Championship, they can no longer afford to make sloppy mistakes.

Newcastle United manager Rafael Benitez has urged his players "to learn quickly" after losing back-to-back games in the Premier League.

The Magpies' solid start to the campaign on their return to the top flight has started to deteriorate slightly over the past fortnight, having slipped to successive 1-0 defeats against Burnley and Bournemouth.

Benitez admits that the demands of top-tier football is something that his Newcastle players have to get used to, with any sort of mistake - no matter how minor - often being capitalised on, as witnessed in recent games.

"We have to learn quickly what it means in the Premier League and what it means to make mistakes," he told reporters. "It's not like in the Championship when you make mistakes and you can win.

"If you make a mistake, you pay for that. We have to learn what we have and what we have to do and how to react if something is right or if something is wrong.

"It seemed that we were learning quickly, but now we are making mistakes and paying for that. We have to be sure we're more focused and concentrate, especially in the last minutes of a game. We have to keep working hard."

Next up for United after the two-week international break is a trip to face second-placed Manchester United at Old Trafford.