Now is the season to be generous, apparently. Our usual Achilles heel of Xmas returned with a vengeance at Valley Parade, and our perennial Yuletide profligacy was all too evident. 

How Alan Shearer must wish he'd saved one or two of those five goals against Sheffield Wednesday for dark days such as this.....

Just as Newcastle were rightly praised for their fighting qualities in recent outings against Spurs and Roma, so they should be pointed at, called names and generally abused for letting this slip away. 

Most of the fight they showed was unfortunately amongst themselves, with Ferguson howling in frustration at Solano and Pistone for their inept attempts at finding men in a black and white shirt when United had fallen behind. Hopefully Big Dunc also took time out to chastise himself for some rotten lapses during the afternoon, culminating in a bad miss in the final minutes, power and frustration being shown when a calm finish would have halved the deficit.

It would be unfair however to load the blame solely on the big man: his first half header planted against the crossbar was the pick of a number of good chances that weren't converted, a rare run and shot from Helder also being of note. 

By contrast, the big Scotsman's so-called striking partner Shearer didn't even manage to overly tax the home fans' mastery of insults by barely being involved for the first hour. If anyone can see signs of an understanding between him and Dunc please write and point out my optical shortcomings. 

Gallacher  probably had his best game for the club (admittedly not a great achievement) and showed signs of linking up with Pistone down one flank while Solano and Barton mirrored this on the other. Sadly however, this wasn't profitable and as the winter sunshine diminished, so did the contribution of Gallacher and the Peruvian. 

Once the width goes, so does a lot of our positive play, and it was noticeable that Pistone and Barton pushed up further and further in the second half to no good effect, a succession of poor crosses succeeding only in their being well out of position when inevitable counter attacks ensued.

The late introduction of Dyer and Glass didn't really help, Dyer on the pitch only seconds before the second goal went in and Glass not seeing a great deal of the ball until the frantic last minutes. Vocal support to the Newcastle team, which had been constant without being ear-shattering gradually dried up, and more than one or two made an early departure. 

The home fans of course, loved it. Each goal was greeted with wide-eyed astonishment by some of their number, and scenes of players and fans embracing that would have been more in keeping with an FA Cup tie. The City fans took special joy from the second clinching goal, unveiling a "Rodney, You Plonker" banner and loudly enquiring as to whether SKY "expert" Rodney Marsh was tuning in. Evidently Rodders had made them relegation certainties....

To sum up, Bradford could barely believe their luck, on an afternoon when they had looked to be collectively bricking it from the first whistle and ready to meekly surrender. They seemed to believe the publicity about resurgent Newcastle, unfortunately so did Robson's boys. The reaction of the players to something of a humiliation should be interesting: whether Tottenham will get a backlash at Gallowgate on Wednesday evening remains to be seen.

With the benefit or post-match hindsight and drink, this result and performance was certainly out of kilter with our recent resurgence, but to the half-trained eye, Shearer looks back almost to the sulky figure he was before Bobby came to town. 

Time for some fatherly advice from the old master to the young pupil methinks. As for the rest of them, being taken down a peg or two is no bad thing - we're not as big and clever as we'd like to believe....