Gutless show results in disaster

By Peter Donnelly
January 6 2003

Newcastle United were the victims of another FA Cup shock this weekend, with United putting in an awful shift. Wolves will rightly be proud of their peformance but from a Tyneside point of view the match was not good at all.

The story of the game was this: Newcastle went a goal down inside 6 minutes, before letting in another goal just under 30 mins. Jenas and Shearer led the way back to make it all square 2-2 at half time, with JJ capatilising from a Shearer shot and Al himself scoring from the spot. 2nd half, Wolves got a goal on 47 mins and Newcastle didn't get back into the game.

However, the way the players went about the job was not acceptable. Far too many people were soft and nervous, in a game where you need to show the opposition who's in charge.

Laurent Robert had another shocker, providing very little going foward and offering nothing going backwards, practically playing like a left-foward.

Sir Bobby Robson summed it up perfectly after the match and his summary will tell you more than anyone else could about the game.

Robson said:

"We completely wasted 45 minutes of football in the 1st half. We went in at 2-2 but were lucky to do so and got out of jail. And at half time, in principle, there was only one team who is favourite to win the match and it wasn't Wolves.

We lost the 2nd half 1-0 yet we played better in the 2nd than in the 1st. There was a marvellous double save from Shearer's free kick, Bellamy got through twice and LuaLua had a remarkable goal line save against him.

You have to give them credit, they ran their hearts out, were really up for it and got a mammoth victory. But I'm just pretty sick - we'll have a sick city back in Newcastle because the FA Cup means a lot to us, we've lost a gigantic game and I'm cross. But we've gone, the FA Cup is now history for us.

I hope some players are as sick as I am. Again, we've conceded three goals away from home and it really is all un-explainable. We are not defending away like we do at home, but it's not just the back four, it's in other situations as a team too.

It's just away fixtures, whether the players don't give their all, I don't know. We've had words, we've had cross words, we're spitting blood, we're angry with each other and this is a cruel defeat for this club. We wanted a cup run on top of what we are doing, but it's not to be now.

We never really hurt anybody, never really got close to anybody, never made any telling tackles, one or two players pulled out of tackles and we weren't full of verve and inspirational value. We thought the result would just come our way because we are a Premiership side and they're not, and because we have, in principle I suppose, better players than Wolves. But in the 1st half we didn't have any players better than Wolves and I don't accept that.

We are fourth in the league, we have to forget about the FA Cup completely, it's not there for us, it's hurt us. I hope the players don't sleept tonight like I won't but we've got to soldier on because there's a lot to play for. We have the Champions League coming up at the end of February and we are challenging for the league title. There's a lot to take pride in and we must not let the season die now.

We'll have to get over it, it'll certainly take 24 hours. We have to just get on with our life."

We did have a goal which wasn't given, with LuaLua's blocked shot actually crossing the line, but like Shearer said, we didn't deserve anything. It really is extraordinary though how we can out-battle Liverpool at home one week and then look so vunrable away from home.