Newcastle United manager Rafael Benitez claimed Harry Kane's tackle on Florian Lejuene was more worthy of a red card than Jonjo Shelvey treading on Dele Alli.

Shelvey was shown a straight red card by Andre Marriner three minutes into the second half at St James' Park for standing on Tottenham midfielder Alli's ankle while he was sat on the ground following a challenge.

Alli then opened the scoring just after the hour mark and Ben Davies completed a 2-0 victory with a cool finish, and Benitez was frustrated after the final whistle.

The Spaniard stated Kane's scything first-half tackle on debutant Lejeune, which forced the Frenchman off with an injury and only received a yellow card, was the worst action of the match.

"The Harry Kane tackle was worse than this one. It's more dangerous. We lost one player from that," Benitez told BBC Sport.

"We made a mistake, but I think maybe someone has to analyse these things to see what's more dangerous."

Benitez added to Sky Sports: "What I would say is that he [Shelvey] made a mistake.

"Still, I'd like to see if this is a more dangerous situation than the tackle from behind to Lejeune.

"Hopefully he [Shelvey] will learn from that. Obviously, he knows that he has made a mistake and has apologised but that changes nothing now.

"To go to the point that it was 0-0 and the chances we had on the counter-attack against a good team, it's a pity that everything changed."