Half time:  Newcastle 0 Palace 0

Full time: Newcastle 0 Palace 0

Alan Murray deputised for Graeme Souness and said:

"The fans want us to win. They want us to play well and win well. At times today, we did play well without actually putting the ball in the back of the net, which is what wins you games.

"Yes, I understand the fans and we are very sympathetic. We need someone to shin one in or go in off their backside or something to drop for us.

"We are all disappointed in the way the season has panned out. I am not going to harp on about injuries because you all know the situation.

"It is a very difficult league to play in, we have played an awful lot of games and things have not gone for us.

"But we are quite resilient and we will pick ourselves up and go to Fulham looking to win the game down there."

"We are disappointed with the result having dominated the game and created quite a few chances and opportunities, especially in the first half.

"But we did not quite have the quality in the final third to put them away, although I do believe that Patrick (Kluivert) was not offside and that goal should have stood.

"I have not seen it on the replay, I am just going on what people have told me."

Iain Dowie commented:

"We certainly came to be difficult to beat, but I am not going to come here and say our attacking game was anywhere near on. We did not get our passing game going at all.

"But I thought in second half, we were very, very comfortable. We dealt with everything they had.

"We had a little re-jig at half-time and I thought we defended with great tenacity and great drive and there were some terrific performances out there.

"If you come to a club the size of Newcastle and in a week or so, take four points from Liverpool and Newcastle, it is a big, big display.

"It was always going to go to the wire. I made the point people were writing off Norwich, but they have got Birmingham at home and Fulham away and they are games they will be looking at.

"We have got Charlton away in the last game and Southampton at home, so there we are. We have played against Champions League semi-finalists and a club who can bring on goodness knows how much talent at the end there.

"(Laurent) Robert and (Patrick) Kluivert, they must have come for a few pounds in their time, so that is what you are dealing with, but I thought we dealt with it very, very well."

How generous of the club to provide fans with their own personal bag of rubbish with which to amuse themselves in this match, promotional leaflets and carrier bags being pressed into service as impromptu paper darts and hats respectively - the Toon Army do Pepperami Origami..... 

A great shame though that they forgot to provide anything on the field worth applauding, save for a cameo appearance by a footballing great whose career has been ruined by off-field indiscipline and is searching in vain for a club willing to meet his monstrous wage demands - that's Tino we're talking about there by the way.... not Patrick Kluivert.

In a nutshell: we dominated the game, twice having the ball in the Palace net only to be ruled out both times for infringements (Taylor when the ref wasn't ready, Kluivert wrongly flagged offside).

We opened brightly and saw chances created and missed by Shearer Milner, N'Zogbia, Ambrose and Ameobi. Palace failed to create a single clearcut effort, with alleged Toon target Andy Johnson scarcely sighted, save for an early penalty box dive in a vain attempt to win a spot kick. 

As we have all season, the trick of playing two worthwhile consecutive 45 minute periods of football in the same match proved once again to be beyond us.

There's nowt worth saying about a second consecutive home goalless draw that stupified our own supporters, other than it's another one nearer to the end of a season that seems to have been running for about two years already.

As has already been well-documented we're short-handed because of injuries, suspensions and stupidity. And yet, we really should have been able to collect six points this week regardless of which eleven players we put out.

Instead, we again allowed a rotten team to leave Gallowgate with a point. Palace were unambitious and almost unwatchable, just as Boro had been. And on the evidence of the last two games, one would have been hard pressed to decide which one was looking for a UEFA Cup spot and which one trying to avoid the drop.  

Today we fielded a side made up of experienced international players and emerging talent who all share one characteristic - they completely lacked form, fortune or confidence. But that doesn't excuse slipshod shooting and failures in ball control and passing. Basics, I think they're called. 

If there was a surprise, it was that Graeme Souness didn't see fit to appear at the post-match media inquest to berate the failure of the match officials in not correctly calling Kluivert's "goal". 

Maybe he's as bored as we are with that never-ending line of "if only" defence, with scarcely a game going by when we're not robbed by either the whistler or a flagwaver for a penalty or offside decision - funny how we didn't seem to care about such trifles in times past when our league position was measured in single figures. 

And as to the logic of putting Robert and Kluivert on for the last twenty minutes of this game, what was so special about Palace that they were thought worthy of use today, but not against our chemical brethren on Wednesday?

But of course none of it matters. 

We collected the point that means we can lose the next three games and it won't do anything other than reduce our place pot prize money, while setting a new low in terms of points and finishing position. Oh aye and Robbie Elliott has signed a new contract - start the open top bus.

There's nowt wrong with Robbie Elliott - he's a wholehearted player, who has hung around and collected his money while we've tried and failed to either develop or purchase a left back. Presumably if he'd opted to leave when he had the chance we'd have re-signed John Beresford.  

As a means to reducing the number of season tickets sold though it's a fairly persuasive ploy. 

And as if we weren't miserable enough, the Chairman used the medium of his programme column to reveal that next season we're going to try and emulate Everton. Jesus, how depressing. Perhaps we should and buy Duncan Ferguson back then? 

People are bored with the same familiar failings, augmented this season by some new foul-ups of our own devising. It's hard to recall a time when the gap between supporters and players was greater.

Who gets the blame though? Shepherd, Souness....or Shearer? 

From our observations post-Lisbon, all three continue to be cited as reasons for people losing faith and expressing their current disillusionment. But try and asking them for alternatives to any or all of that holy triumvirate and the only noise is the shuffling of feet.

Speaking of feet, only the small paper and plastic wallet in people's pockets stopped them voting with their size 11's and delivering a verdict of no confidence. Had this game been a pay on the gate job, then we would have struggled to break the 25,000 mark. 

And by the end, even the booing was comparatively restrained when compared to the Wolves game last season - when a home draw against a side destined for relegation left us 9 places and 14 points better off than we are now.

It's one thing to "lose" the support of the dressing room, but quite another to render a whole city apathetic. That old showbiz line about it being worse not to be talked about isn't far off the mark here - the time to really worry is when people don't care at all and at present, the on and off field antics of this club are making people indifferent to its plight. 

Rather than hide the Lee Bowyer £200k fine in the biscuit tin marked "academy", a far better use of the cash would be to refund the admission price of everyone going to the final two away games of the season, which promise to be unutterably awful on this evidence.

As this country goes to the polls, we're going to the pub - to reminisce of times past and dream of times to come. The present? We'd rather not think about it.

Biffa

Reports