This little review took a day or two to complete. I’ve been drowning my sorrows. A little more serious than usual, but it was a serious shambles, and should be treated with the severity it deserves.

Familiarity is comfort. They say it breeds contempt, but it is all about comfort. We feel comfortable with familiar things around us, whether it’s our friends, our family, our house, or 50,000 kindred spirits on a Saturday afternoon.

So following that abysmal performance we should be feeling pretty comfortable, should we not?

There was the usual round of panic when they came at us guns a blazin’. Remember those little wind-up penguins all chattering away in different directions?

There was the usual plan that could never work. Think “Somme”.

There was the usual defence with more holes in it than a five year old Fiat.

There was the usual Shola.

On the lighter side Steven Taylor’s Amateur Dramatics had a certain “Allo Allo” quality about them - remember when he handled the ball against Villa last year and made out like he’d been shot by a sniper from the stands? This time he did the same again, falling to the ground clutching his right side, having stopped the ball with his left arm. Poor lad looked in pain. It was made even more “classic” by the fact that he’d earlier taken a Ferdinand volley square on the neb end and was only knocked off balance by it. And funnier still was the fact that Harper was right behind him, and looked to have it covered.

If you watched the game then you have to agree with the fact that 2-0 is a flattering scoreline.

It could have, and should have, been five or six, had it not been for a couple of good saves from Harper and some really friendly woodwork.

We were well and truly beaten, or to use a technical footballing term - “arseholed”. And if we are to make any progress we have to learn from this, as with any addiction - and let’s face it, to be Toon fan you have to be an addict - part of the recovery process is to first admit that you have a problem.

We have more than one problem.

On to the game.

Harper - 6
Did well - compared to the rest of them at least.

Carr - 4
Totally outclassed. Has looked OK over the last few weeks but up against class opposition, he wasn’t up to it. Was caught so far out of position so many times he spent half of his wages buying tickets to get back in. There are times when Carr looks like he’d rather be somewhere else. There were a number of times when he was beaten and just strolled back into the box.

Taylor - 5
A little better than Carr but another of many fault ridden performances. We suddenly seem to believe that we can pass the ball out of defence, and when it works, it looks pretty good. Trouble is, it only works for about 75 minutes. Scattered through the game there’s about 15 minutes of real playground stuff.

Moore - 5
Not good - made more mistakes than any manager would be happy with. Both Moore and Taylor were guilty of suspect clearances, poor passes and both headed the ball down to the feet of our opponents inside our own box, instead of keeping it high
and long.

Ramage - 6
In my opinion the best of a bad bunch. He’s still a young un, and gave his all.

Emre - 7
Emre put in the effort and did well to bite his tongue. We know he can react a bit now and then, but he just picked himself up and got on with it. Showed a bit of fire, showed a bit of skill.

Parker - 5
Not a good game for our Captain. One of many players unable to cope with Ronaldo’s pace and trickery. For the first goal Milner was about to put a tackle in on a marauding Ronaldo, but Parker was guilty of horrific miscalculation, totally got the pace wrong, blocked off Milner and then found himself a yard behind Ronaldo. This allowed Ronaldo to get the shot in that bounced back to Solskjaer

Butt - 6
Did well to harrass Rooney out of the game, but that’s all he did.

Milner - 4
Was made to look extremely average - and slow with it - by a certain young gentleman by the name of Ronaldo. Milner wasn’t the only one though, to be fair. Ronaldo made our whole team look pretty poor.

Duff - 5
Did nothing of note.

Ameobi - 4
This guy is not a holding forward. To be a holding forward you need to be able to control, HOLD and distribute the ball - and that is not a very accurate description of “two-touch”. Its also pretty handy if you can remain standing up some of the time. It’s not his fault. It’s just not his game. If you had a front line of four and pumped balls up front all day their defence might have been stretched enough to let Shola get on the end of a couple. If he’s the only Newcastle player in their half, their defenders are taking turns at picking him off, just to keep it interesting.

Subs - What’s the point?

Roeder - 3
I supported Souness to the bitter end. I can’t see me doing the same with Roeder. With Ronaldo whizzing around the park like a demented Road Runner on speed, we keep Zoggy and Martins, by far our fastest 2 players, on the bench, while Carr, one of our slowest players, is left to deal with him. We play a single forward and for 75 minutes pump balls over the top in the general direction of, well, nobody really. We just don’t seem to do tactics very well. Did he honestly think that we were going to hold United at bay for 90 minutes?

Roeder appears to have made a statement saying that he is confident that Ameobi will come good. He is also confident that Bramble will come good, as will Boumsong and Luque.

I think he has a point. Boumsong is even scoring goals now!

While I understand that Rossi was not allowed to play against Man U, I hope Roeder is going to give the lad a good run out sometime before December. Play to our strengths. Our first strength is Shola on the bench, second Rossi on the park with
Martins, Duff and Milner.

When was the last time you saw Shola score a goal that couldn’t have been knocked in by half a dozen other people in the same position?

Looks like our old habit of conceding goals just before and just after half time appears to have returned to haunt us again. Is it lack of fitness, or lack of concentration? Lack. Finally - something that we do well.

For some strange reason I’m suddenly starting to feel very comfortable.

Archie Brand
Drowning Sorrows
In Bahrain