Following a pre-season perhaps best described as uncomfortable, Newcastle lined up at Villa Park for their opening fixture on Saturday lunchtime without a quartet of familiar faces.

Callum Wilson, Sean Longstaff and Martin Dubravka have all left for Premier League pastures new, but the absence of a fourth man from proceedings continued to exercise the tongues of the media and the patience of Eddie Howe and his club's exasperated supporters.

84 days after he last kicked a ball in anger for the club, Alexander Isak was missing after his efforts to leave reached the point that he became a striker of a different type and club fines kicked in. 

Sadly that deadlock also meant that his present club lacked an orthodox centre forward, Howe's lack of confidence in William Osula seeing Anthony Gordon lead the line - the Wilson vacancy that was known about last season inexplicably remains unfilled.

Their opponents may have gone into the game unbeaten on home ground for almost 12 months, but Villa were hardly in rude health after a debilitating transfer window during which they'd been forced to confront the financial reality of PSR in much the same way the Magpies were a year ago.

Our fear as the Isak saga unfolded was that what may well be spurious reasons (broken promises over transfers, contracts, signings, staff, training grounds or stadia) would be latched on to by other blue chip Magpies who no longer bought into the "project" and wanted to cut short their "journey".

If nothing else, the spirited collective display from the green-clad Magpies after the first 45 minutes of the season alleviated those concerns, even if the bluntness of the attack was just as evident.

Villa reached half time having failed to have a single shot on target while United should have been in front in just the third minute when debutant Anthony Elanga shot against Marco Bizot with Gordon on hand for a tap-in. Hopefully that won't be Elanga's Jon Dahl Tomasson moment....

Chances came and went for the visitors: better crosses from both flanks would have seen them ahead at the break while a familiar-looking back four protecting Nick Pope was spearheaded by Dan Burn, who made a series of well-timed interventions to snuff out the occasional Villan counter.

United's domination was less pronounced after the restart, but worries they'd failed to capitalise on that earlier supremacy lifted when Gordon beat Ezri Konsa and was pulled down in the 66th minute.

The break in play while he was banished saw United players visibly re-energised, taking it in turns to exhort their fans to greater efforts and perhaps believing that this after all, was to be our day.

But like the feeble free kick that followed (and other dead ball situations that did nothing to boost the reputation of United's new set piece supremo Martin Mark), it all fell rather flat.

Into the closing stages and debutant Bizot - who looked shaky but remained mostly untested - dealt with Gordon's low shot after a mazy dribble. That came after United's number 10 had assumed a more familiar left wing role and Harvey Barnes worked an opening from similar range to many of his Toon goals but blasted the ball into the crowd. Ozzy would have called it a shot in the dark....

Sadly, our inability to profit from the situation presented to us meant that the most-profile player today was the one who remained absent due to his own misguided motives. A reaffirmation of team spirit and siege mentality is all well and good, but that doesn't solve our scoring problem. 

It's fair to say that had Isak played then one point would have become three, but with the proviso that the Isak in question was the effective, defence-torturing one; not the facsimile who cantered out late last season, when it was assumed he was carrying an injury rather than a grudge. 

Given the evident efforts of those who did put a shift in, it's equally justifiable to claim that victory would have been achieved had the Newcastle side included any effective centre forward or were more experienced with Gordon in that role. 

Pick your era: Albert Stubbins, Peter Beardsley, Andy Carroll. We've seen it all unfold before, fumed, survived and prospered. No player is irreplaceable, but at this point in time the frustration of seeing the supporting cast improved after successive wasted windows only to then lose the leading Mag threatens to overshadow everything else. 15 days to save a season.

Biffa