Newcastle are through to the UEFA Cup group stages following a 2-1 win over Levadia Tallinn at St. James’ Park tonight to wrap up the tie 3-1 on aggregate.

Roeder made several changes to the side that drew 1-1 with Everton at the weekend bringing Taylor in for Moore at the heart of defence, Butt for Parker in central midfield and Sibierski up front to partner Martins.

And it was the Nigerian who turned the tie on it’s head after a goaless and dull first-half, leaping well to head home his first goal at the Gallowgate 2 minutes into the second 45 and moments later crashing in a second with a stunning left footed strike from the edge of the box.

Zelinski grabbed a consolation for Levadia on 65 with a header that should have been saved by Harper in goal but overall United deserved the win despite not playing well.

Teams & Stats

United: Harper, Carr, Bramble, Taylor, Ramage, Milner, Butt, Emre (Parker 80), N’Zogbia (Duff 70), Martins (Luque 70), Sibierski. Subs not used: Krul, Moore, Ameobi, Pattison.

Goals: Martins 47, 50.

Levadia: Kotenko, Sisov, Lemsalu, Cepauskas, Kalimullin, Dovydenas (Sander Puri 55), Vassiljev, Nahk, Dmitrijev (Kink 63), Purje, Voskoboinikov (Zelinski 63). Subs not used: Stonys, Marmor, Kristian Malov, Regelskis.

Booked: Dmitrijev.

Goals: Zelinski 65.

Att: 27,012.

Ref: Kristinn Jakobsson (Iceland).

Newcastle are in action again this evening (Thursday) with a game against Levadia Tallinn of Estonia in the second leg of the UEFA Cup first round proper.

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Newcastle United have signed up to Amisco Pro claim the Guardian newspaper - the sports management software not too dissimilar to ProZone which Toon fans may remember Sir Bobby Robson once fuming over because the club refused to install the software when he asked for it.

Other Premiership clubs to use Amisco apparently are Chelsea, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham and according to the Amisco Pro official website:

See what cannot be seen! Do you want to finally be able to observe the movements of all the players and to measure their physical performances?

AMISCO PRO is the only one to answer these needs; it is the most powerful system of market analysis available.

Thanks to “intelligent sensors” AMISCO PRO allows a precise performance analysis of all the players during the full 90 minutes.

AMISCO PRO is superior to all existing video and/or statistical systems in that it produces a 2 dimension animation as well as exclusive tactical and fitness data.

Gain the immediate benefit of a unique knowledge base by opting for AMISCO PRO today. Several big European clubs have already, why don’t you?

Err, canny.

For more information visit here

Toon manager Glenn Roeder has today admitted his surprise over Kevin Bond’s rather hurried sacking by United, talking to Sky Sports News Roeder said:

“It (Bond’s sacking) was a surprise and there has been no time even to give that any thought whatsoever, not with the game coming up.”

Meanwhile one paper today claims that Roeder was less than impressed with Bond anyway, since appointing him. Although there were no quotes or anything to back up such a claim.