Newcastle's winless run in the Premier League lengthened to five games on Sunday, as yet another miserable visit to Stamford Bridge ended in defeat.

Some awful defending was punished with a goal in each half engineered by Cole Palmer and although Alexander Isak scored a rare goal from open play to put his side level, United couldn't muster a second equaliser once Palmer regained the lead for Chelsea shortly after the break.

The Blues made ten changes from the side that won 4-1 in Greece on Thursday night and thought they'd taken a fifth minute lead through Palmer, only for VAR to rule that he was offside when reaching Jackson's pass.

Some neat passing around the Chelsea box saw Bruno Guimaraes burst through only to be downed by Levi Colwill, who immediately indicated to referee Simon Hooper that his trip on the visiting captain was outside the box. 

Incredibly, Hooper waved play on with VAR was unable to intervene, as the foul was indeed outside the box - although arguably a red card could have been given with Bruno certain to shoot. Almost inevitably a contentious incident highlighted and repeated in the live broadcast mysteriously failed to make an appearance in any of several highlights packages.

Almost inevitably, an opener for the home side arrived moments later; Palmer's excellent pass releasing Pedro Neto down the left and the winger avoided Fabian Schar's desperate tackle before providing a low centre that the unmarked Jackson buried.

At that point it looked like being a long afternoon for Eddie Howe's side, for whom Anthony Gordon was missing due to a groin strain. That saw Harvey Barnes return on the left while Miguel Almiron was preferred on the opposite flank for his first Premier League start since our visit here in March.

Presented with a chance of an almost instant leveller, Almiron could only poke his effort wide of the far post but the erratic kicking of home goalkeeper Robert Sanchez had initiated the majority of Newcastle's attacks until the 32nd minute of the opening half.

An excellent team goal that began with Pope involved seven passes and eight players, ending with Alexander Isak touching the ball home from inside the six yard box before enduring an anxious wait for VAR to ratify his onsideness.

Level at the break after Pope palmed away a deflected effort from Neto, United fell behind again just 75 seconds after the resumption; Palmer taking Romeo Lavia's pass and firing between Pope and his near post. Neto then headed against the goal frame as United looked fragile for a period of time.

A treble change for the visitors midway through the second half included the replacement of Sandro Tonali amid audible booing from some away fans unhappy at his withdrawal, but United then had their best period of play; the reshaped midfield rather more effective than the previous five man unit.

Substitute Joe Willock's cross was tailor-made for Isak but his goalbound header rebounded off a defender and was scrambled away. The Swede then raced down the right into the area and attempted to dance around Sanchez and a defender in the six yard box in a manner reminiscent of Peter Beardsley at Portsmouth back in the mists of time.

Sadly though, Isak failed to get his shot away and the ball was cleared - Joelinton in acres of space and pleading in vain for a square pass along the six yard box.

They were to be Newcastle's best chances of taking a point for the second time in three visits here; a large chunk of possession and time-wasting from the home side meaningless as we failed to hit the target again.

Christopher Nkunku looked to have earned a penalty after bouncing off Dan Burn in the box in the 90th minute, but after awarding the spot kick on the field Hooper changed his mind after reviewing the incident at pitchside.

The defeat left Newcastle 12th in the table, 11 points off the top and the same total off the bottom. That's their lowest position since defeat at Brighton in September 2023 dropped them into 14th.

Hopefully there's enough resentment and sense of injustice post-match in the away dressing room at some dreadful refereeing decisions to provoke a reaction in Wednesday's Carabao Cup rematch. 

Defeat in that tie would leave a sizeable hole in this season and prompt a further bout of questioning over Howe and his side; something more evident in murmurings and headshakes among the faithful rather than full-blown moaning, but not just confined to the online utterances of bedroom experts.  

Visits here so often conjure up negative thoughts that regardless of our form going into this game, we're never confident of getting anything - something echoed by the overwhelming number of readers whose entry in our match prediction competition was of a home win by varying margins.

It's hardly an original line to compare the relative values of the substitute benches, but today's was as stark as we can recall: £75m+ of unused talent on the home bench compared to a notional £25m that in reality was a £5m Swede, an alleged £20m goalkeeper, a bairn and a coach. 

The free-flowing entertainers-type upfield charges and eager press has gone along, with any belief that we'll score one goal more than the opposition. The mantra of PSR inhibiting our progress by restricting the level of spend the is only part of the story though: none of our four close season arrivals or the one coming back from suspension have materially improved the starting line-up. 

The contribution of Tonali to a club that he owes an awful lot to remains marginal in our eyes, but our frustration with messrs Almiron, Murphy and Willock is at a similar level. The Brazilian duo meanwhile are perpetually on the teamsheet due to previous endeavours rather than current form.

And it's all rounded off by a defence with an ageing duo in the middle who are unsurprisingly liable to getting the runaround from bright young things and a battery of expensive forwards. If you're unwilling or unable to construct a new team, then there's little point in building a new ground. 

This certainly wasn't like the lashings of old that were routinely handed out to us here - part of the pre-match blather was which order the two 0-4s and the 0-6 in the 1980s came in, but that's of absolutely no consequence in the here and now.  

There was genuine fear among the home fans and players that we'd steal a point late on, but it was a tough watch for the entire 105 minutes. The clocks went back an hour on Sunday morning, at times here it felt like they'd been reset to 2021. 

Biffa