22 mins: Two games and two assists for Kenedy, whose corner kick passed through a crowd of players with Ayoze Perez taking a deliberate touch to help it on to the unmarked Mo Diame at the back post. He stuck out a foot to divert the ball into the Holmesdale End net from five yards. 1-0

Half time: Eagles 0 Magpies 1

55 mins: Zaha made progress down the Palace left before whipping a centre over past DeAndre Yedlin. Christian Benteke was pushing Ciaran Clark on the edge of the six yard box as the ball arrived, but the Newcastle man then visibly held his opponent's shirt sleeve to inhibit his jump. 

The linesman on the opposite side indicated a penalty and a lack of protest from visiting players was significant. A slight element of confusion came as Kenedy may have used an arm to control the ball after it went beyond Benteke - although that award would have been highly questionable.

Luka Milivojevic took the resultant spot kick and Darlow guessed correctly to get two hand on the rising right footed effort but only succeed it helping it into the net 1-1

Full time: Eagles 1 Magpies 1

 
Rafa:

 
"The (Newcastle) fans are fantastic - when you go away you always can feel them…we would like to win every game and send them home happy.

“We have more people at home, and if we stick together we will be stronger.

“Islam Slimani was not ready. He was training on Saturday, he will train tomorrow, he will have a chance for next Sunday. He must compete, like Dubravka and Kenedy.

"Joselu has a virus. It was very dangerous for everyone in the end because all of his family are with the virus and you have to be careful. He was very weak (an attempt to justify his penalty miss?).

"We did well coming here and getting one point. We were controlling the game in the first half, the three offensive players they have, we did well in defence.

"We had a couple of chances and the counter attack early in the second half could have changed everything. We needed to defend a little bit better.

"Scoring the second goal could change everything. We didn't do it and we conceded what I would say is a soft penalty because he was pushing my player and my player was pulling. 

"That changed everything because obviously they had more confidence and they were pushing and we know they have very good players up front.

"We have one less game and one point more – we are still fighting, so we will see.

“We are very narrow and compact so we have to carry on. I think that this group of players are working very hard, so you can’t complain about that. We have to ensure the new players make more competition in every position.” 

Roy Hodgson:

"I’m a little frustrated. At half-time I wasn’t too happy with the way we played in the first half, even though we created two or three good chances I didn’t think we played anything like I’d like to see the team play.

“As a result you might have thought we would have been happy with a point but the way we played in the second half and the dominance we had in the end, I’m disappointed we didn’t get more than one goal for those efforts. We were asking lots of questions of Newcastle in the second half but that ball wouldn’t just go over the line for us during those goalmouth scrambles.

"Maybe it’s nervousness or being concerned about how important the result is and then we find ourselves 1-0 down after poor defending of a corner kick, but we have the ability after half-time to come out as a totally different team.

“We exerted a lot of pressure on Newcastle and had the ball in and around their box, and even though we had 21 strikes at goal a lot of those were from distance which doesn’t interest me, but there was a lot of entries into the penalty area which does. If we can keep doing that then with the type of players we have, then we will score goals.

"When you’re one of the teams at the bottom, you don’t drop points because only the teams that go into games saying this is a definite three-pointer drop points. Teams like Newcastle and ourselves don’t drop points, we gain them – sometimes we gain two less than we would like, or perhaps deserved today on our second half performance.

On the penalty that was given:

"On the touchline we don’t see those things  the ball comes in and there are a lot of bodies in there so you’d be a brave man to say that you detect all of those things. I’ve seen it on the TV and the rules of the game are clear, but you don’t often get penalties for people pulling shirts, but it doesn’t mean to say that it’s not a penalty because the rule are very clear.

"It’s very rare to see players doing it outside the box to stop a good moment in the game where the referee doesn’t blow his whistle for a free-kick. I can’t say I have a strong opinion of it, but I’m glad about it. Had we lost the game 1-0 because the referee decided to ignore that penalty claim, then we would be feeling very hard done by."

Another eventful week at Newcastle United concluded with a draw that was deserved - albeit slightly unexpected given Palace's recent home form, having lost just one in their last nine here.

The club's two deadline days recruits weren't introduced, but Kenedy retained his place in a side with three changes from that held 1-1 at home by Burnley in midweek. Joselu, Mikel Merino and Christian Atsu, were replaced by home-grown trio Jonjo Shelvey, Matt Ritchie and Dwight Gayle.

Those tweaks allied to a below-par display from the Eagles saw United find space in the midfield to mount a series of attacks - that bright start bringing yet another goal from a corner but further wasted opportunities to score that oh-so vital second.

Palace were never totally out it though and Karl Darlow's workload was more demanding than that of his opposite number, Wayne Hennessey. Penetrating our backline with ease, both Wilfried Zaha and Christian Benteke were denied as we reached half time ahead, but not comfortably so.  

Sadly though an opportunity soon after the restart for the Magpies went begging: Kenedy and Perez through two-on-one, only for the Chelsea loanee to delay his pass and Perez stray offside by the time he received - and lost - the ball.  

Less than ten minutes later, Roy Hodgson's side were level after Clark's aberration was punished and Darlow narrowly failed to keep Luka Milivojevic's penalty out.

From that point onwards, Palace were firmly in the ascendancy and put the visitors under sustained pressure. Benteke, James McArthur and Zaha sent efforts narrowly over the bar as United were on the ropes - Kenedy's replacement by Isaac Hayden a signing that hatches were battened down.

A low shot by the substitute was comfortably saved by Hennessey in a rare Newcastle attack, while Palace failed to press home their advantage and both Clark and Paul Dummett threw themselves in the way of Benteke shots to keep the scores level.

There was one final chance for United in the fourth minute of injury time, but Atsu's attempted curler went narrowly wide of the target and the game ended in a draw that left us in sixteenth, a solitary point above the drop zone with 25 points from 26 games. Palace sit two places and two points above us with West Ham, Brighton and Watford also on 27 points.

After a 1-5 humiliation here in the last relegation season when McClaren's motley mob were "outwitted and out fought" after going ahead, there was some satisfaction from seeing a better team display - even if a number individual performances left something to be desired.   

Our concern over the effectiveness of Ritchie remains, while in his current inert state there seems little chance of Gayle scoring at anything like the rate required. Step forward then Islam Slimani, to hopefully extricate us from the clarts, much as Papiss Cisse and Paul Goddard did in seasons past. 

It's all a bit tawdry if truth be told, with the whole concept of teams in the same league loaning each players not sitting well with us - something hardly promoting a level playing field. 

It's now just one defeat in six PL games, but also only a solitary victory in that sequence. Having drawn but not beaten teams around us, the worry is that we now have to start taking points from sides in the top half of the table - something we've struggled to achieve so far.   

Biffa