Half time: Magpies 0 Cherries 0

90+2 mins Rob Elliot turned Jermain Defoe's shot round the post for a corner at the Leazes End, but when Andrew Surman sent over the resulting flag kick, Cook was left alone to head into the net from six yards out - the loss of Jamaal Lascelles earlier in the half perhaps decisive. 0-1

Full time: Magpies 0 Cherries 1

Rafa Benitez:

"Yes, I was angry after the game, because you have to say what you think. My main priority is to make sure that the players understand what we have to do in the future.

"I wasn’t very happy with some of the things I was watching, that’s it. We made mistakes and in the end we paid for that.

"We gave the ball away easy without great pressing, and we were giving them chances to counter attack. 

"Yes, the players were angry. They are not very happy obviously. That’s very common when you lose a game.

"We knew it would be a long season and we would have good results and bad results. We will stay calm and try to do the right things.

"I will not talk about the decisions (of the officials) because I am not very happy with the decisions.

"I was worried from the first of September (when the transfer window closed). What I did is to work harder and that is what I will do now.”

"To lose against anyone is frustrating, but especially against these teams and in this fashion. We have to learn quickly. When you have experience, you know things can go wrong and then everybody will be blaming the others. 

"Now is the time to analyse, to change things, but this is a learning process.

"We didn't do what we had to do on a lot of occasions and our mistakes, in the end we paid for that. We gave the ball away easily, we gave Bournemouth belief they could score. It was a self-inflicted defeat.

"I was really happy before the game, disappointed after the game, I know that it is still too early, but we have to keep working the same way as we did before.

"We are where we are and this is further proof that we have to keep working hard and stay compact together or we will have problems in this kind of game.

"We have created chances in every game, then we have to score, that's it, it's not just to create, after you have to take your chances.

"We have to keep going, we know we are Newcastle, a good team that has been promoted, and we were doing really well, so we have to go back to our principles."

Eddie Howe said:

"It's a huge win. Both sides could have won it I suppose, the first half they were better than us, I wouldn't say we were fortunate to come in 0-0 but we needed to up our game.

"We did, and how we didn't seal the game earlier was like us this season, we haven't been clinical enough and you felt it could be another day like that.

"But it's a great header from Steve Cook and a deserved three points I think. We had enough to win the game before that moment, but we'll take any win, regardless of how it comes.

"Back to back away wins is huge, our away record prior to this wasn't great. You need to know you can win anywhere, it's a huge win for us and hopefully that will lift our season.

"It's ideal, it sets us up nicely for the games to come. They're tough games, but games we will relish. It's never nice being in the bottom three, and we needed to lift ourselves out of it, and hopefully we can stay out of it now.

"I think we've just been unlucky to a degree, we hadn't been as clinical as we wanted, we weren't again today, but we were resolute defensively today, and that's the key thing.

"I do think the team is still improvement, I think there's a lot more to come, and hopefully we can show it."
 

A game of two halves saw Newcastle beaten at home for the first time in four Premier League outings on Saturday, Steve Cook's added time header seeing the Cherries secure all three points. 

And although Isaac Hayden avoided the booking that would have seen him sit out the trip to Old Trafford in a fortnight, both Jamaal Lascelles and Christian Atsu were forced off due to injury.

The Magpies had a trio of efforts on target in the first 15 minutes, visiting 'keeper Asmir Begovic equal to Matt Ritchie's long-range effort, Dwight Gayle's header and Atsu's drive.

Ritchie's next effort then cannoned back off a post before Gayle swept home the rebound - only to fall victim to the most marginal of offside decisions. 

At the other end, Rob Elliot made a vital contribution on the occasion of his 50th league outing for United, tipping Mark Pugh's 35th minute header over the crossbar. 

For the seventh time in 11 league games so far this season United went in at half time scoreless, but only a dreadful miss by the visitors seven minutes after the restart kept things that way - Callum Wilson contriving to shoot wide after being left in a one-on-one with Elliot. 

That failed to trigger any positive response from the home side, who paired Gayle and Joselu together in a rare 4-4-2 formation - the former starting for the first time since the defeat at Huddersfield in August.

Ayoze Perez's arrival in place of the unthreatening Joselu made no difference, United persisting with their bone-headed ploy of lofting high balls to Gayle - barely working the flanks and tossing off what set pieces came their way. 

If Perez was unimpressive though, Jacob Murphy was simply dreadful when replacing Atsu down the left - weakening the side rather than giving us options.

Creating absolutely nothing in front of goal, a point looked like being the height of our endeavours - a further let-off coming after 89 minutes when Pugh looked to have squeezed his shot home, only to strike the upright before substitute Ciaran Clark cleared.  

The arrival of Jermain Defoe had given home fans a rare opportunity to make themselves heard on what was a curiously uninvolving afternoon. And although the former mackem forward failed to increase his career tally of eight goals against us, he played a part in Bournemouth's late winner. 

Elliot was able to turn Defoe's shot round the post for a corner, but when Andrew Surman sent over the resulting flag kick, Cook was left alone to head into the Leazes End net from six yards out - the loss of Lascelles earlier in the half perhaps decisive.

That deprived United of a point that they had scarcely merited, but for a third successive game there were question marks over their application and creativity - not to mention increasing concerns over goalscoring.

Jack Colback remains exiled, but the naming of Aleksandar Mitrovic on the bench seemed little more than window dressing - given that this game seemed tailor-made for his own physicality. The Serb remained unused though, when even his arrival might have roused the crowd from their slumbers and in turn made something happen.

Bournemouth didn't look great at the back and much of what we created in the first half stemmed from their own errors under pressure. Crucially though, we offered less and less up front as the game wore on, encouraging them to advance down both flanks and expose our slacker full backs.

A decent team would have run up a cricket score in what was arguably our worst 45 minutes so far this season, as we lost both shape and purpose to an alarming extent.

Victories for the other promoted sides saw Brighton and Huddersfield move above United in the table, Rafa's side ending the day down in eleventh.

Given the run of games we face over the coming weeks, this could have been considered a must-win one - or certainly one we couldn't afford to lose.

Instead though we've put pressure on ourselves and handed three points to another unremarkable side - something that proved to be our undoing last time.

Biffa