It's entirely predictable I suppose, that Bobby Robson would become the 86th Newcastle manager to travel to wherever Wimbledon play and subsequently accuse the Gods of toying with him.

There were dozens of reasons why we could and should have broken the hoodoo that coming up against the Wombles invokes: Shearer stuck on 99 Premiership goals, the team seemingly oozing confidence and goals, the list continues....(actually over 9,000 reasons, including a small boy called Chris who saw his first live defeat and just said "why" ? - he'll learn....)

Putting aside gypsy curses and damaged mirrors, the old familiar frailties return to haunt us: lack of understanding in defence, hesitancy in goal, profligacy in the opposition area. Just when Bobby's boys look to have cleared the spectre of Bradford, a virtual rerun at Selhurst Park ended with an identical scoreline and internal divisions. Proof if it were needed could be found in the on-field bickering between the black and whites that punctuated the second half.

Of course nobody can say hand on heart that three points should be claimed from any premiership game, and pre-match hype seemed to focus on our recent run of form whilst ignoring the fact that Wimbledon have started to restore their home record in recent months, but the non-geordie affiliates in the crowd will doubtless have chuckled as the goals dropped past Harper and once again we dropped back into the bottom six with comparative low investors like Watford.....

Inevitable maybe, that local bookies welcomed with open arms those travelling fans who forecast a continuance of the free-scoring of encounters at Gallowgate, whilst forgetting that we've only scored seven away league goals since Bobby's investiture.

Predictable that our passing passing game would stutter on a pitch rather more in need of a heavy roller than the sward of St.James'.

Unavoidable that all players have their off days and no matter what you do, some days the ball just won't go between the sticks (or if it does it doesn't count - eg: Shearer v Southampton.)

BUT.....

Surely unforgivable that players like Hreidarsson could graduate from an average Brentford side to comprehensively dominate an £8 million pound striker in the air ?

Perhaps surprising that a lumbering old carthorse like Carl Leaburn could play his part in a victory that could have been sealed in the first half as the home side missed their own chances in a mirror image of the visitors form ? For hell's sake, this bloke was finished when he played against us for Charlton yet defenders who have international recall pretensions and talk airily of lucrative new deals are seemingly thunderstruck by the shadow he casts ?

Certainly eyebrow-raising that save an early switch of channels between the twin front men, it took 73 minutes for Robson to shake up his troops with one of his much-favoured substitutions ?

From my lofty (and buckshee) perch behind the goal Newcastle were attacking in the second half, it seemed that we abandoned the very principles of attacking that had moulded our recent resurgence, and a succession of rotten crosses sailed away from attacking colleagues, or alternatively good balls were posted to absent runners. 

One person who might have been expected to burst the proverbial gut was the returning Barton, but he seemed to become as bogged down as the rest of them. People tell me Gallacher played, but maybe the port was being passed to me every time he got the ball, or his contributions were masked by a haze of blue smoke from expensive Cuban cigars...or maybe he just did nowt.

Rational thought certainly seemed to have little place in the match reports filed by people who get paid to voice their opinions, other than jinx-type inevitability pieces, but "Wimbledon" and of course Southampton remain for us more terrifying places than Old Trafford or the Olympic Stadium in Rome. 

It may only be the same three points lost as at other grounds, but it's the soft underbelly to the team that is displayed that causes the most concern, no doubt in the same way it niggled away at Kevin, Rudi, Kenny et al, and look what happened to them.....

One day, just one day though....and i'll keep coming until it does happen. Especially if I get in for nowt....