Newcastle finally scored their first goal under Kevin Keegan on Sunday afternoon, only to lose the lead some time later and be lucky to escape with a point. Dissallowed goals were the topic of the day, with one at the very beginning and at the end as well. We got the panel’s reaction to a controversial day on Tyneside…

Rich

“These days I can usually take results like the one on Sunday with nothing more than a swift shake of the head, but when it’s against the Toxic Monsters from the Riverside then I struggle – big-style – especially in circumstances like those I witnessed from the Gallowgate on Sunday afternoon. One perfectly good disallowed goal from Michael Owen a mere four minutes from the start of the match followed by one infuriatingly bad allowed goal from Robert Huth four minutes from the end. I could have crushed a grape.

Middlesbrough never used to really register with me, because I didn’t really used to know any of their fans, but for a team with such a small-time appearance they frustrated me by merely being in the Premiership. They frustrated me by seeing their game against us as the biggest of their season (when they weren’t infuriating me by winning Leage Cup finals, mind!) I put ‘Boro into the same bracket as the likes of Wigan and Bolton, plastic teams with plastic stadiums and no fans – not clubs fit for the Premiership when you have clubs like Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest and Leeds in the lower divisions.

So that’s why Sunday annoyed me so much. The ‘Boro fans were jumping around like idiots at 1-0, so when the inevitable (and illegal) equaliser inevitably came they went delirious and probably rightly so. Had the linesman on the East Stand side not sorted his act out in the final moments, then they might have even snuck it 1-2! But to be fair to the bloke, he got that one right as two Smoggies were again offside in the eighteen yard box.

Apart from the frustration of the result and the perennial annoyance of the Teesiders being allowed to enter a proper stadium in the North East, there was a lot of positive stuff to take from the game. Emre returned and looked bright, getting another assist, Michael Owen broke his mini scoring duck and looked busy and involved and Joey Barton returned from whatever he’s been doing since being in jail and played a big part too. Charles N’Zogbia was the real standout though – not for the first time – and it’s a massive blow that he’ll miss out at Villa on Saturday. Duff looked better than he has before and Smith toiled manfully against their gigantic backline… but Nicky Butt, unfortunately, was appalling.

I said prior to the game that we were due some luck against this lot after some of the events of recent years – Hasselbaink’s hand and the farce of the “icey approaches” being the two things that spring immediately to mind – but we didn’t get any at all and were again shafted by the men in the red shirts… and the blokes in green. One day though, things will turn, and if a few decisions go our way in the space of 90 minutes then we’ll give this lot the pasting they’ve deserved for a good long while now. They are, quite frankly, a crap team with two monsters in central defence – the Chemical Brothers as they’ll hopefully be known from now on – and if they stay up then let’s hope we take more than 2 points off them next season.

Man of the Match: Charles N’Zogbia.”

Jonny

“It was a day of defensive errors that (arguably) cost us our first three points under KK.

As a qualified referee myself, I was disgusted at the display shown by Mike Dean and his two officials. It is occaisons like this which call for the introduction of video technology into our current game to try and take away this element of mistakes from football. When your in some trouble like Newcastle are at the minute, you look for luck and the decisions to go your way, and over the past few games that simply hasn’t happened.

Kalou was not flagged in the final minutes at Stamford Bridge when we were close to a point, at Old Trafford we should have taken the lead through Owen’s classy finish which was wrongfully ruled off and against the Boro, Owen again had a goal dissallowed again for impeding, despite not even touching the keeper in the buildup to the ‘goal’.

Add to that the fact that Newcastle probably should have had a penalty for deliberate handball, the fact that the Middlesbrough equaliser was in itself not ruled out for offside and Mike Dean’s general whistle-play throughout the entire game, you begin to wonder whether they let any old sap referee these days.

At the end of the day, they are in a position where decisions have to be made and they have to be correct. Call it being picky and looking for excuses, but with the controversial decisions made on the Sunday, rather than 1-1, the game could easily have finished 3-1/3-2 in Newcastle’s favour. And then we wouldn’t have been complaining.

We’re getting there but we’re hopping over the finish line. Roll on Villa.

MOTM: For some of his goal-saving tackles and interceptions, Claudio Cacapa.”