18 mins Despite having two central defenders on the coaching staff, we still can't defend corners. This time Shay was guilty for coming and not reaching the high kick to the far post, from where an unchallenged Davenport was able to nod back to Cole - deserted by his marker Ramage - to knock the ball past Milner on the line. 0-1 

22 mins Former mackem McCartney rolled an innocuous looking ball up to Harewood on the edge of our area and Ramage was caught on the wrong side of the striker, allowing him to easily turn and then prod the ball past Given. To call it a schoolboy error would be an insult to pre-pubescent pupils up and down the land...0-2 

45 mins Solano played it out to Milner on the right who checked back on to his left foot and thumped the ball just inside the far post beating the dive of Carroll with its pace and accuracy. 

Parker was undoubtedly offside in the middle but did his presence change the 'keeper's reaction. 
Carroll had full sight of the shot and dived full length as James Milner hit a low curling shot - Parker's skip over the ball not making much difference to the 'keeper. The linesman's half raised flag was overruled by Rennie despite much protestation from Carroll and Ferdinand and the goal stood. 1-2 

Half time: Newcastle 1 West Ham 2

53 mins Milner's free-kick from the right touchline wasn't great but Boa Morte inexplicably blocked it with his arm. Nolberto Solano swiftly took the kick, finding the bottom left of the Leazes goal while Carroll dived right. 2-2
 
Full time: Newcastle 2 West Ham 2

Glenn Roeder said:

"When you consider we were two down and hadn't started well, to come back as we did was pleasing, especially after the FA Cup defeat on Wednesday.

"The second half was excellent and we probably let them off the hook.

"It's worth noting that When we finished, that was the 20th different back four we've had this year."

"I could sign a bad player every day between now and January 31. There are plenty out there.

"I am trying to sift through what is available and what can help us on loan until the end of the season.

"I have targeted four or five players I would like to buy who would help us become a better squad and a better team but we are finding it hard to prise them from their clubs in January.

"I understand the reasons why clubs do not want to sell them at this time, but it does not mean my interest will go away come the summer.

"What use is bringing in a player that within a week of having him, I am thinking, 'Why did I do that?'.  [Olivier Bernard, anyone??]

"I am not prepared to do that. I am determined to use two loans but there is not a lot out there. I will find two though."

"That makes it one defence a week now this season - but you just have to cope with it.

"You have to look for positives in the situation we have just come through. The youngsters are getting valuable experience and it's making all of us tougher mentally.

"I'm always telling the players they need to be fighters, and the situation we've found ourselves in has proved that.

"We've had to fight hard over the last three or four months but, in the long run, I believe it will do us good. The players will benefit from what they've had to go through.

"It's not a problem for me - I've had to fight all my life and I enjoy it - but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to when the injured lads get fit again.

"You can be panicked and jump off the cliff, but I for one won't be doing that. I could sign a bad player every day between now and the end of January because there are plenty out there.

"But the biggest thing is patience. I've seen other people be patient, and it pays off. Yes, it's a little bit brave, but the supporters understand what I'm trying to do. There's not a lot out there, but I'll certainly find a couple."

"It's tiresome of late to be conceding rotten goals and everything that happened on Wednesday meant it became an even bigger test of character against West Ham.

"Never for one minute, though, did I fear the worst. I knew the boys would fight back and that's exactly what they did.

"It was a hell of an effort to get back to 2-2 but, on the second-half performance, there was disappointment that we didn't go on to win the game."

Alan Curbishley ranted on and on about Parker's role in Milner's goal:

"If he wasn't interfering with play, then he damn well should have been.

"I am so disappointed with their first goal. It changed the whole face of the game.

"The linesman put his flag up - he admitted he put his flag up - but because Scott did not touch it he (Rennie) did not give it. I do not know what Scott Parker is doing if he is not gaining an advantage.

"The rule is if you are looking to gain an advantage you are in an offside position. He was standing right in front of Roy Carroll and deliberately dummied it so it could go in the net.

"He put his flag up and if he had kept it up I do not think anybody in the ground would have complained. But what can you do? We cannot do anything about it.

"Sometimes you’ve just got to see sticky situations out, with everybody mucking in, and we just couldn’t do that.

"When you haven’t won for a long while, every time it goes against you, you think it’s going to happen again. When you go in front, you just want the game to end

Our midweek capitulation against Birmingham meant that the end of this game signified the start of an enforced ten day lull in hostilities and a chance to take stock before the next offensive.

But while Glenn Roeder packed his bags and headed off for a three day Pro Licence course, he had much to concern him: new additions to his sick list, a failure to land permanent or loan transfer targets and an ongoing racism row that threatens to envelop everything else. 

The recent takeover non-developments don't even warrant a mention.

By the time Martin O'Neill walks into SJP at the end of the month (as Jim Bowen would have said "here's what you could have won"), things will be a good deal clearer round these parts.

Sibierski, Duff, Babayaro and Bramble are expected to return to face Villa, leaving merely Ramage, Given, N'Zogbia, Amoebi, Moore, Bernard and Owen as non-combatants - and Solano suspended against his old club.

Whether Emre though will have recovered from his alleged calf injury may depend on how quickly he's dealt with by the FA panel considering the charge levelled at him of using racially-aggravated abusive and/or insulting words.

The closing date for the Turkish midfielder to respond to that charge passes 48 hours before the Villa game. And by the end of that fixture we'll be within a couple of hours of the transfer window closing - around the time that Rossi and Sibierski appeared in August (free agent Bernard came in later, in a car that failed its MOT....probably).

For the second successive transfer window, recruitment is obviously a problem, with an apparent policy difference between board and manager.

The former apparently favour stop-gap type old-stagers who just happen to be on the books of certain agents; the latter is attempting to stick to his footballing principles of bringing in emerging talent - even if only for a few months.

The result? stalemate.
The compromise? it has to be borrowing, not buying said "experienced campaigners".  unsatisfactory though it may be, bringing nobody in is not an option.
The outcome? disillusionment from the manager and supporters and those players who see their fledgling first team careers put on hold after an outbreak of common sense.

The problem with having a "go with what you know" policy in our eyes is that it pre -supposes that the so-called first choice players are any bloody good in the first place. If only we had our first -choice players out on the field......we'd still not be awfully happy with our lot, most notably in the back four.

So the strategy seems to limp through with players who have let us down previously - certainly in the case of Babayaro, news of his alleged return to fitness does little to cheer us up and we're already counting the days until he rules himself out again.

The injury problems really started to bite for us in December, when Huntington, Edgar, Pattison and O'Brien had to be drafted in and Carroll, Troisi and LuaLua seconded for bench duty.

So that's less than a month to see and endure the gaping holes in the squad before being in a position to plug the gaps that currently make our defence one of the most porous in the country. 

When that window shuts Roeder has three and half months to effectively populate a team. Given the outrageous misfortune we perpetually endure, to believe that our injury woes are now at an end is naivety verging on recklessness. 

And that's all without the ongoing need for a striker of some sort to play with Martins - which seems to have been conveniently ignored in all the defensive furore with Butt and Nobby being drafted in. An injury to Martins just doesn't bear thinking about, while we are putting an enormous amount of faith in Kieron Dyer given the time that he took to return from his gashed leg before Xmas.

As we stand today, we lack even a Rossi replacement and are numerically inferior to our position a month ago when Sibierski was still "answering his critics" and scoring. 

It's now 11 games since the Frenchman netted and today he was absent from the 16 after another buffeting in midweek. There's no question that he's not fully committed, but also beyond argument that he isn't a goalscorer. There again, neither is Duff. 

Let's just be grateful that a combination of Milner, Dyer and assorted defenders has weighed in with goals to keep our head above water, especially given that fact we have conceded more in the Premiership than even basement club Watford.

Back to Saturday's game though and giving a side who had collected two points from a possible 33 and not scored in over 14 and a half hours on the road a two goal start wasn't a great tactic.  

The return of the pre-match huddle was followed by a continuance of Wednesday's slovenliness, with the whole side equally shambolic as we began in the same vein and were soon punished. 

However, we mercifully came to our senses when two down, although we were then forced into yet another defensive rearrangement, having already been drafted the barely fit-again Carr into an unfamiliar left back slot.

Further alterations were caused when Ramage limped off. Having returned to the side for the Spurs trip after the bare minimum of training, his hamstring inevitably proved incapable of surviving three games in seven days. However we instantly looked more settled with Edgar slotting in alongside his reserve partner Huntington in central defence.

At 2-2 we went in search of a winner and came close on four occasions - a trio of fine efforts from Martins as he turned and fired shots on goal and one scramble that saw Edgar's scrambled shot hit the crossbar.

Further injury problems then saw Harper return to the side as Given left the field in pain, copping for some paternity leave to spend with his soon-to-drop missus in circumstances he'd rather were different. 

The sponsors announced Milner as the man of the match, but our vote would have gone to Edgar for showing some of the poise and aggression that was missing in the early stages - and being able to successfully pass to his own side. Certainly he looked no worse than alleged Toon target Anton Ferdinand on the other side.

One person who will doubtless appreciate the break is Nicky Butt, who while resting his limbs can reflect upon a gradual appreciation of his renewed contribution becoming evident - boos giving way to applause upon his appearance and standing ovations on his departure from the field , culminating in the glory of the winning goal at Spurs. It doesn't bear thinking where we'd be without his input. 

Today though he looked to be labouring, especially with the variable contribution of Parker alongside him - who can only partly be excused for his disappointing display by returning from injury. 

In this current time we're looking for big players to lead by example and try to exert a calming influence - sad to say there was precious little of that from the captain - and numerous examples of abdicating responsibility and playing less experienced non-international players into trouble.

Back to Emre though, who remains absent while Luque was at least on the bench today - although for no clear purpose, save for making him turn up to the matches and perhaps saving a few euro in wages if he happened to flounce out again when the teamsheet was pinned up.

Currently there's not much difference between either player - with both entirely useless to our cause if they aren't playing. But while the amount of wedge the Spaniard trousers from us makes finding a new cash cow improbable, the Turk remains a sellable acquisition.

Disregarding our no-smoke-without-fire feeling about this whole racism thing and informed attempts at pre-judging the outcome from the Mail and other newspapers, nobody is going to come out of this well.   

From where we are standing, it's not just the player in the dock, but to a certain extent the club and manager - and how they react if the verdict is a guilty one. 

Roeder may now regret his post-match attempt at an apology to Everton and the consequent assertion that this matter was all over and done with - just as the FA investigators were arriving on Merseyside.

The worst scenario would be for Emre to join Luque in the unplayables, just at the time that he becomes an unsellable until the end of the season. But that's exactly what looks like happening. 

If the man who currently owns our number five squad number was sacrificed for either cash or a part exchange to bring in a more orthodox defensive wearer of that shirt, we couldn't give a fig whether it was construed as an admission of guilt or not.

Unfortunately that remains something of a dream scenario. The likelihood is that the player will receive an extended club ban to go with the international one he's being serving, giving us yet another absentee from the squad. Fining him is cold comfort indeed.

And so it goes. It remains a constant wonder that we manage to get eleven players out on the field at the required time, never mind such worrying over such trifles as form, fitness, experience,   position or winning matches.

Biffa