Half time: Newcastle 0 Charlton 0

Full time: Newcastle 0 Charlton 0

Glenn Roeder commented:

"Without doubt, we will take a view that we have dropped two points there when we should not have done.

"That has happened a lot this year, but the important thing is that they are retaining their confidence and playing the football I want them to play in terms of moving the ball quickly through the team."

"It was a frustrating game for us. We did everything we could other than stick the ball in the back of the net, which is probably the most difficult thing to do anyway in the game of football.

"The effort in the first half by Giuseppe Rossi that came off the underside of the bar summed up what's happening to us at the moment in the Premiership."

About the penalty claim:

"We had a good shout. I'll be really disappointed if the referee's assistant hasn't done his duty and given us a penalty. He's the closest person to the incident.

"My argument would be: why would Damien want to fall over when he's bearing down on the keeper?"

"The squad is being tested to its limits. I don't like the description `bare bones' that some other managers use, but we are shot on numbers."

Iain Dowie said:

"The first half and the first 10 minutes of the second half were as bad as we've been all season, but we were well in the game in the last 30 minutes.

"We played very well last week and probably did not get what we deserved; today we played nowhere near as well and maybe could have nicked it at the end. Sometimes you have got to show resilience and I felt in the last 40 minutes, we were very, very resilient.

"You cannot have the keeper make five or six saves and them hit the bar and not be relieved. But they might be relieved late in the game when we had good opportunities.

"It is a massive club. I played here many a time and and did not go home with anything, so we have got a point and we will build on that. We have had three clean sheets and a victory and two draws in a week is not bad, as long as we build on it next week. We rode our luck in the first half but we have had many a game where the luck has gone against us.

"In the second half we were more resilient and had arguably the best chance of the second half. We crept into the game and started to restrict Newcastle to a lot of direct play but we did not play well enough to win. We were not good enough on the ball."

Two home games in a week - two clean sheets and progress into the next round of the Carling Cup. Crisis? What crisis? Is this just a glass half empty/half full scenario?

We all have different views and different perspectives and as manager of Newcastle, Glenn Roeder is doing what Graeme Souness, Bobby Robson, Ruud Guillit and Kenny Dalglish all did when they felt the pressure - coming out on the offensive with all guns blazing. I suppose we'd probably do the same if we ever fulfilled our dreams and got to be in charge of this damn club.

However, the collective doom and gloom that descended on Tyneside after this latest failure can not be talked away or ignored. We finished the weekend one place above the relegation zone with just two wins and two draws from ten games. We've only scored seven league goals so far and are in the middle of a congested run of fixtures with just one fit striker - who is ineligible for Europe.

How unlucky is that? Not very, to be honest.

Martins, who has so far done very little to justify his huge transfer fee is now absent with tight hamstrings. As Roeder admitted, "Players with the speed he has often pick up hamstring strains. We need to protect him for the next couple of weeks." And don't we know just know it, having waited forever for our other speed merchant (Dyer) to get his hamstrings in order.

Ameobi has been carrying his hip injury for a couple of seasons now so his absence was inevitable and with Owen out for the year, this "injury crisis" was more than predictable - it was bleedin' obvious. Our recent transfer policy and dealings have been absolutely shambolic with the high farce surrounding the closing of the last transfer window highlighting our sheer amateurism.

Going into a vital Premiership game playing a winger and a novice - both vertically challenged - up front for a club of this size is nothing short of a disgrace. And guess what? We failed to score. Again. Let's get the crystal ball out for our trip to Palermo - our prediction is... err... another lack of firepower.

For anyone to bemoan our poor finishing when we fielded a team of unproven finishers is plainly ludicrous and judging by the second sub-50,000 attendance, more and more of us are no longer prepared to swallow it.

To say we could and should have won this game four or five nil is no exaggeration. Excluding the two recent joke mackem relegation sides, it's difficult to remember seeing a poorer Premiership side than this Charlton one. Their confidence was obviously low and their passing and defending reflected that.

We created a number of good chances in the first half that might have seen us come in at the break well in front. Rossi was unlucky not to carry on where he left off on Wednesday especially when hitting the bar from close range after Duff had rounded 'keeper Carson. Duff also managed to deflect what looked like a goalbound Rossi effort wide.

We gave Roeder the benefit of the doubt for changing our fortunes against Portsmouth at half-time, although Martins was subsequently shown to be injured. He now has the benefit of our ire for being so unable to affect the outcome of this game.

Newcastle fans are soon beginning to experience what Gillingham, Watford and West Ham fans suffered - a promising first season for Roeder is soon followed by a second season of struggle (indeed, for the last two relegation).

For me, he should never have been given the job permanently but, like Souness, I certainly don't blame him for taking it. Which other Premiership club would have appointed him as manager based on winning ten league matches? None. The top four clubs wouldn't have even looked at his CV. So if we have ambitions to be a top six side then why did we? Meanwhile, a rotten club like Aston Villa manage to persuade Martin O'Neill back into football....

Like our striker transfer dealings, we had bags of time to make the right appointment and we failed miserably. There's only one place where the buck can stop where that's concerned but accountability at boardroom level isn't something this club has a great recent history of. Neither is winning trophies. The two seem to be inextricably entwined.

Niall MacKenzie

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