Report by John Gallagher at St James' Park

This was yet another miserable away day in a season of many and it is totally baffling and worrying. Our home form is really good, with only three 1-0 defeats compared to our eight defeats on the road.

Coming home from the game on Saturday I was convinced that the defeat was the last hammer blow to our chances of finishing 4th, as I was totally expecting Everton to spawn a 1-0 win against Blackburn thus extending their lead over us to a massive eleven points.

Luckily for us Everton are running on empty at the moment and are dropping points themselves, but with games running out we have to start taking the initiative, especially with the Anfield derby coming up.

That is going to be one of the most important derbies in many a year.

We lined up with a new look 5-3-2 formation against Newcastle with
Pellegrino, Sami and Carra the three centre halfs with Finnan and Riise the wingbacks. Gerrard and Biscan were in central midfield and Garcia and Vladi played just off Baros.

Scott Carson also came in for his debut in place of the injured Dudek.

I don't know why Rafa started with that formation, maybe because we are so fragile away he was trying to shore things up and try and nick a 1-0 win on the break?

It was nice to go in at half-time 0-0 however as normally we are 2-0 down at that stage.

To be fair we did look fairly comfortable with the new system in the first half, especially Pellegrino who showed good positional sense on a number of occasions to head the ball away and clear his lines.

We weren't exactly creating chances ourselves though, the best being a half volley from Garcia which looped over the bar, and Given had it covered anyway.

Gerrard looked okay in the first half, and seemed like he might be our main threat. He played some good passes at times without really getting involved too much.

The second half was a different story with him though, and the whole team to be honest. We gave the ball away continuously, Gerrard and Garcia being the main culprits as Newcastle upped the tempo and harried us into making mistakes.

The sad thing is they seemed to want it more than we did. I wasn't particularly impressed with them and didn't think they were any
better than we were but the things they beat us with were more effort and commitment.

A few players were sadly lacking in these departments today most notably Baros (all game) and Gerrard (2nd half) the latters case especially when we went 0-1 down when he should have been driving the team on.

A lot has been said about Gerrard over the last week or so and I think I have made my opinion quite clear on the forum so I am not going to say too much here.

He missed our best chance of the game in the last minute when he went through on the right hand side but dragged his shot across the goal when he should really have squared it to Warnock.

It was Baros who really pissed me off more than anybody on Saturday though. I have always liked Milan and thought he had a rough deal last season when our underachieving number eight was continuously picked ahead of him despite some shocking performances.

The thing with Baros is he normally tries too hard which made his lack of effort really noticeable on Saturday. Okay he was in a strop over the Carling Cup Final omission, but surely the best way to react to that is to get out there and prove that you should be in the side week in week out?

I will be very surprised if he is still here next season. I hope he is, as
he is by far our best striker and on form he takes some stopping. I can't see it though sadly.

Newcastle won the game through a Robert free-kick which wasn't a foul in the first place, Pellegrino was adjudged to have fouled Shearer which even I from my seat which was half way to the moon (I was on the back row of THAT away end by the way) could see that it wasn't a free-kick.

Shearer is the master in winning free-kicks in positions like that though.

Robert struck a brilliant effort into the far corner which Carson got a
hand to but couldn't prevent it going in. A few of my friends blamed Carson for it but I am not convinced.

It was hit with so much swerve and power and I thought he did well to even get a hand to it.

When the goal went in you knew it was game over and if anybody looked like scoring again it was Newcastle, especially Kluivert who caused a couple of problems when he came on.

I thought Boumsong was excellent for them, even Bramble played well (did I really say that). Boumsong would have been a good signing for us, young, quick, dominant in the air and he seems a bit of a cult figure with the Geordies.

He looks like he would have been the perfect long-term partner at the back for Carra.

The lack of character and spirit in the side is worrying and I just hope
that we can scrape 4th place and get some players in the summer who want to play for us with a bit of character and fight in them.

Little Thommo would do nicely for starters, who by all accounts was
excellent against Everton yesterday. He loves the club and would crawl back here to play for us.

Other players available we should be looking at are Routledge (Liverpool fan), Parker (surely fed up at Chelsea), van Bommel (going on a Bosman), Andy Johnson (who would be the ideal partner for
Nando), Rosicky (class player who we could pick up for next to nothing).

If you know who does leave in the summer we should be going for these players and we would still have plenty of money left after that to improve the defence.

It is going to be a momentous summer and crucial decisions are going to be made one way or the other.

Team: Carson; Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Pellegrino (Le Tallec), Riise; Biscan, Gerrard, Garcia, Smicer (Nunez); Baros (Warnock):

Agree or disagree? Email me at johng@liverpoolway.co.uk

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