Alan Pardew said:

"We are missing too many of our top players and we need them back and quickly. Fabricio Coloccini and Papiss Cisse picked up minor injuries midweek and I couldn't risk losing them for some important Premier League games looming. In the situation we're in, the most important thing is our Premier League status.

"The truth is that not once this season have I had my best side out. We're not too big to go down. I think it is important to spend. We lost Cheick (Tiote) and Demba (Ba), one to African Nations and one to a transfer. 

"The most important thing for us is our Premier League status now because we've put ourselves at risk with all the injuries and the run we're on. We need to make sure we're a Premier League side next season. We're not hiding from that. We need our best players back.

"And as for Brighton, despite the fact we'll be trooping to the far end of the country, the prospect of defeat seems almost preferable to what would be publicly portrayed as a morale boosting victory - but one that condemns us to at least one extra game. The worst case scenario would be a draw and a replay sandwiched between pivotal league games against Norwich and Reading."

That was our own downbeat assessment of our FA Cup campaign in the wake of losing at home to Everton last Wednesday and Alan Pardew seemed to be in a similar frame of mind - at least if his post-match interviews were any guide.

Pausing only to unconvincingly claim that this was the best team available to him - presumably to head off claims of fielding a deliberately weakened one - his comments then cut straight to the chase and the rather more pressing concerns of his side's increasingly parlous league position.

Pardew's previous exits at Stevenage and the Amex had ended with players missing for subsequent league fixtures and that particular curse was to strike again today. Lee Probert looked to caution Shola Ameobi based on secondhand information having not seen the first offence and defender David Lopez then did his best to ensure Shola walked with some disgraceful play-acting. 

But to blame the loss on the dismissal would be to ignore the woeful hour that preceded it. We never had a toehold in this game and never looked like taking the lead. At times it was debatable whether we were actually there at all. 

Brighton deservedly went ahead after James Perch had earlier cleared off the line and Rob Elliot grabbed another dangerous effort. Goal attempts at the other end saw long-range shots from Gael Bigirimana, Shola Ameobi and Vurnon Anita but none ever looked likely to beat Albion's Casper Ankergren.

The substitutions at half-time spoke volumes about our predicament; Paul Dummett returning from loan duty to make his senior debut and Ranger, whose Newcastle career looked to be over, brought on to partner Shola up front. But whatever the plan was, it went straight out of the window when Shola was booked twice in 15 minutes for fairly innocuous transgressions - although having already been carded, the second challenge was senseless to say the least.

Ex-Magpie Kazenga LuaLua appeared from the bench to a mixed reception from the away contingent and had half-chances to score either side of his side's second. Before that clincher though, ten man United enjoyed their best spell and both Marveaux and Ranger missed reasonable opportunities to force what would have been an unwanted replay - something certainly not in the script.

Please don't call this result a cup shock though. A Newcastle side featuring the currently-pined-for creative duo of Hatem Ben Arfa and Yohan Cabaye lost here last season to a Seagulls side who were in better form and backed by a more optimistic set of supporters. 

That was more of an upset than this, even if Brighton have stagnated since. Twelve months later, questions are starting to be asked round these parts why Gus Poyet's esteemed reputation has so far failed to mount a convincing promotion charge and the Seagulls sit behind teams managed by less glamorous chaps like Steve Bruce, Tony Mowbray and Nigel Pearson.

Accompanying our "Mission Accomplished" headline, was the final score, recorded "Brighton 2 Newcastle Res 0" but that's not quite the full story - as the side we fielded here was in no way comparable to the second string XI trotted out at Peterborough in the League Cup in 2009.

That night Chris Hughton made ten changes, replacing them with his reserve side. Here today though were three quarters of our current first-choice back four, three of the midfield (including both summer signings) and a man who scored our last Premier League winner. Calling it a weakened team is grossly misleading - there was no semblance of a team here at all. 

After some reflection - and a withering description of Ameobi junior's poorness delivered within unintentional earshot of that player at Clapham Junction station on Saturday afternoon - it did occur to us that not only did the manager pick a team to lose, but he also did so to try and highlight the paucity of fringe talent waiting in the wings (or on them).

Was it in fact a plea for proper players? A re-run of the Bordeaux away game, when a similar set of loafers chucked away the opportunity to enhance their reputations and increase the chance that they'll remain within touching distance of the matchday squad when or if the injury problems and recruitment difficulties ease. A public parade of the rubbish he's got beyond the first XI.

If so, it's a dangerous game for Pardew to play. His predecessor Hughton was far less voluble and had accumulated rather more points when he was given the elbow. The manager's calls for further recruitment have grown more strident in recent weeks and unless he's pushing against an open door and is secretly confident of the required reinforcements arriving, to start harking back to the failures of his superiors to do the business last summer is a risky strategy. 

At the risk of turning on the Geordie cup cliché machine, it's a disgrace to see us limp out of a competition that we were synonymous with once upon a time. We pilloried Manchester United and the FA for their pullout for that World Club Championship thing once upon a time, but three successive exits to lower league opposition is the sort of suspicious pattern that alerts online bookies. 

It's an absolute tragedy for Newcastle supporters that the FA Cup is now considered to be on a par with the Anglo Scottish Cup or Zenith Data Systems trinket. But putting aside memories of "it's wor cup", fastest Wembley goals and the like, to have gone from the Robledo Brothers to the Chuckle Brothers - sorry, the Ameobis - is hard to take - even if there are extenuating circumstances that made this an almost desirable result for the manager and the club.

What sticks in the throat of those fans who journeyed here and those who scowled at the telly everywhere between Blyth, Bucharest and Baltimore was the fact that Newcastle were so obviously going through the motions. Call it passion or professionalism or whatever, "it" was in remarkably short supply here among those players clad in our perennially unlucky maroon kit. 

If the manager is looking for sympathy among his followers though, he won't achieve it through talking up the likes of Shola as a big player. His mackem quelling capabilities aside, the number 23 continues to do exactly what he's done for over a decade: mix up unrelenting averageness with occasional inspiration  At the time when Pardew's visits to Tyneside were once a season, Newcastle fans were watching, a younger Shola was proving that he couldn't play two games in four days. 

But with the departure of Ba, Pardew had nowhere else to turn - as he did when Shola was just stuck on the field in game after pre-season game like a pack horse. Whether Papiss Cisse was 100% fit or not is immaterial, he shouldn't have been anywhere near this tie given both our current plight and the continued ill-fortune that dogs us. Even if Cisse had been an unused sub, he'd probably have slipped on a discarded stick of Brighton rock in the car park and knacked himself for six weeks.

Going back to our "simply the worst" theory, perhaps the non-appearance of Adam Campbell was a deliberate ploy to avoid tarring him with the same brush - or an admission that the livewire young forward might just do enough to unsettle Brighton into conceding a goal. 

Obertan's replacement by Marveaux meanwhile looked like a meaningless rotation for the ten man side that might have been aimed at retaining the ball long enough to reduce the chances of Brighton knocking a few more goals in to achieve a more eye-catching victory that would have in turn made the newspaper match reports even more cutting. 

Presumably Shane Ferguson is still in the naughty corner after his Emirates misadventure, while Mehdi Abeid meanwhile looked exactly what he is - a discard from the Racing Club Lens reserve side. We've let go of midfielders who were no less talented - and had visibly more appetite for wearing this shirt. Today he was almost comically bad. 

God knows how poor Romain Amalfitano is, if he cannot force his way into this misfits XI. And as for Nile Ranger, national TV, national embarrassment. A scruffy, deluded idiot with no place in this club at any level. Again though, not a rookie - this was his 62nd senior team appearance since August 2009. Paul Goddard made 70. 

So, 17 Premier League games to secure our top flight status and another cup campaign, although our attitude towards the Europa League in February will presumably depend on how many points have been collected by then. On current form, seeing a re-run of this tripe from this lot will be a more powerful disincentive to go to Kharkiv than the sub-zero temperatures.  

The fixture list we were facing this term was available for all to see in June and anyone matching up our squad with the programme that lay ahead could see there was a serious mismatch. We now need to play catch-up on and off the field and new signings and players returning from injury need to give our season a dramatic lift. Instantly. 

That's the essential short term fix, but the long-term one is just as necessary and difficult and involves working out once and for all why we're incapable of rearing proper players. Moneybags Manchester City have had a similarly poor first half of the U18 and U21 season to Newcastle but nobody seems to care, as long as high rollers remain in the first team. 

We don't have that luxury and have to develop talent, be it from up the road or further afield. Whether the raw materials are inferior or the tuition is lacking is for someone else to decide. And hopefully set about fixing. Finally. Dumping the likes of Ranger would be a good start though and send out a positive message. We're as lacking in credibility as we are in Premier League points.

Biffa