Former Newcastle United manager John Carver has admitted that he embarrassed himself when he publicly accused centre-back Mike Williamson of getting deliberately sent off last season.

Carver became Newcastle boss on an interim basis when Alan Pardew left for Crystal Palace shortly after Christmas, but the team suffered an alarming run of form and lost eight games in a row.

In the final game of that run the Magpies lost 3-0 to Leicester and Williamson was shown a straight red card, which prompted Carver to question whether he had done it on purpose.

However, he told The Telegraph: "I embarrassed Mike Williamson and I embarrassed myself, but I still believe I did it for the right reasons and I embarrassed him into performing the next time he played. I apologised to Mike for going public. I had to go and find him to go through it.

"I was at the football club when Ruud Gullit left Alan Shearer and Duncan Ferguson out of the derby game and Shearer was in at 8am to see Ruud. Duncan was in even earlier. That's the difference.

"But Mike was fine and after the two-match suspension, he actually played well."

Newcastle survived, but Carver was dismissed shortly after the season ended.