Mark Hughes said:

"We were excellent, I thought the guys at the back were rock-solid.

"Chrissy Samba and Ryan Nelsen dealt just with everything they had to and when they saw the opportunity to break out themselves they did that as well.

"We had a great platform in which to counter-attack and win the game."

About Benni McCarthy (16 goals in his first Premiership season - 5 more than Oba Martins):

"He's done excellent. In fairness he was struggling at half-time, he got a real bang on his back and I was going to make a change at half-time but he wasn't prepared to come off.

"He wanted to give it a go and he lasted a good twenty-odd minutes after that so I think that shows how keen he is to work hard for the team and be a team player."

And so Glenn Roeder finally got his wish and wrote the name of Michael Owen on a teamsheet at SJP. Unfortunately for him, the other names that he penned once again left him quite literally defenceless in the eyes of both Freddy and the fans.

Our immediate post-match inquest ended with the message that Roeder had "nowhere to go" - a feeling that was then rubber-stamped at a hastily-convened meeting on Sunday at which his 15 month tenure came to an end with immediate effect, not even allowed a valedictory farewell at his old Watford stamping ground.

While the post-match "protest" outside the Milburn Reception was trotted out as proof that the natives were agitating for change, the real story was to be found the gaps in the stands as another below-par home campaign petered out.

Quite simply the fans voted with their feet, registering a motion of "no confidence" in the administration.

Not for the first time though, that was interpreted by the powers that be as "sack the manager".

If nothing else, Shepherd has at least given whoever becomes our sixth manager in the decade since Keegan abdicated slightly more of a run-up to their first campaign in charge.

The comparative luxury of a pre-season and a full transfer window weren't accessible to messrs Dalgish, Gullit, Robson, Souness or Roeder - none of whom began a season at the helm.

There again, that didn't do Roeder much good second time round....

Whoever arrives though faces the same problems that have stumped and ultimately defeated his predecessors.

Our current administration has such little credibility that possible new managers (and players) are eyed with mistrust and almost considered tarnished by their very willingness to sign up for this madhouse.

The Turkey/Xmas scenario precludes the current custodians of the club from dismantling it willingly - and surely that extends to the level of decision and policy-making power Roeder's successor will be allowed.

Be it training methods, player and staff recruitment, pre-season arrangements or whatever, it seems unlikely that they're prepared to give somebody the freedom to mould the club from end to end.  

After all, we retreated from that very scenario when Martin O'Neill rode into town with a notebook full of initiatives. Someone should have told him we don't do planning round here - just damage limitation and crisis management.... 

So if all we're doing is replacing one figurehead/patsy with another one, is that anything more than riding on that first wave of new manager positivism (eg Souness registering seven wins and two draws and 22 goals scored in his first nine games)? 
 
Back to the visit of Rovers though (who may have gained no fans post-Souness but seem to be a bit happier and less strife-torn under Hughes) and for us, a clear case of new strips, old shite.

It's a typically Newcastle situation to reflect that the seeds of our demise and Glenn's downfall were sown by the act of qualifying for the Intertoto Cup - the very achievement that made United battle the authorities to convert his caretaker stewardship into a more permanent arrangement.

Dirty mackem that he is (and richly deserving of a toe-ending for his unbecoming recent post-match gloating) Reading assistant Kevin Dillon hit the nail on the head when he spoke about gaining nothing from beating teams of waiters in July.

Struggling past successive no-mark XIs, we then embarked on a goal splurge against the most competent side we faced - only for AZ to suss us out by the time we got back to their place.

Those fourteen fixtures though took their toll on us domestically, three of our six signings unable to appear in Europe (Rossi, Onyewu, Bernard) and various injuries reducing our limited personnel options still further.

And the post-Alkmaar throwing in of the towel by numerous players looks more and more as if a decision was made by some in the dressing room that the Intertoto wasn't going to be on the agenda again - we're struggling to explain our loss of form any other way.... 

Given all that, Roeder deserves credit for keeping us up this season - before "senior players" informed Freddy that he'd lost the dressing room with one game to go.

Taylor has shown some encouraging improvements and welcome signs of maturity that can reasonably be attributed to Roeder or Pearson passing on their defensive wiles. 

None of the four other outfielders who did it for us were here last season though - new boys Sibierski and Martins being joined by Butt and Milner returning from exile in the West Midlands.  

Twelve months on we've gone backwards from the side who carved the mackems up on their own ground. 

Shearer retired, Chopra sold, Luque not sold, N'Zogbia in bits, Shola and Owen out of the equation, Duff and Dyer a laughing stock. It's been so long since we played well and won that it's difficult to remember what that's like.

That 4-1 reverse at our hands is now being spoken of on wearyside in similar terms to the pivotal 1-2 monsoon defeat that saw off Gullit and strengthened Shearer's status at SJP. 

That's perhaps an over-egging of the pudding(s), but it's undeniable that the return of the cavemen from down the road to the big league is focusing minds somewhat. 

A poor start to next season in comparison to them would certainly have seen far more spectacular protests in Toon, while it's an easy line to compare and contrast the off-field changes on wearside with the Tyneside Kremlin. 

However, talk that the Roeder "resignation" news was leaked to try and keep the championship -winning red and whites off the local back pages is a bit OTT. 
 
With no chance of relegation or European qualification, we had an opportunity today to end the home programme on a high note, providing some crumbs of comfort in the form of a victory and a half-way committed display.

That the team singularly failed to do so shows the obvious contempt that the players hold their manager and their public. Now the former has gone, but it's routinely expected that the latter remain loyal - that's loyal to those in power.  

The sight of people hurrying for the exits clad in new forty quid toon shirts or waiting around to abuse their own side is both savagely amusing and embarrassing.