Habib Beye Watch at Blackburn

Another first half dominated, another bad result! Much like the Hull game, Newcastle played well for 45 minutes but failed to score. At least this time we can blame the referee for some appalling decisions, not least the softest penalty of the season.

Smug Sam sat and watched his old charges fail to take their chances whilst his current bunch of players went on to score 3 goals in a second half which broke the hearts of the travelling fans.

Newcastle chased the game a little after the penalty but Jason Roberts made the most of poor defending once more as our centre halves were exposed. It would appear that Bassong and Collocini can play against physical forwards but as proved recently, there is always a possibility for a big man to score. In fact, Peter Crouch is the only big man not to find the net against us in recent games (Bramble, Sidibe, Faye, Zaki, Hyppia, Cole, Cousin, Roberts).

What we need now, is to turn some of these good early performances into goals and hopefully wins. Our next 4 games present some valuable opportunities before the big boys descend on us around Easter time. Here's hoping for a derby win and a decent performance against fellow under-achievers Man City.