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Newcastle United	2 - 1	Dynamo Kiev
Half time:	0 - 0
Score Sheet:
(58) Speed  (69pen) Shearer		Shatskikh (47)
	Teams
Harper Hughes Griffin Solano Bramble O'Brien Robert Jenas Shearer Ameobi Speed		Reva Ghioane Husin Gavrancic Dmytrulin Leko Peev Belkevich El Kaddouri Nesmachnyi Shatskikh
Substitutes:
(27) Dabizas for Bramble (46) Bernard for O'Brien  (82) Dyer for Solano		Rincon for Leko (71) Cernat for El Kaddouri (77)
Subs not used:
Given  Acuna LuaLua Viana		Shovkovskiy Melashchenko Leandro Bodnar Sablic
Bookings:
Ameobi (persistent fouling)		Husin
Sendings off:
None		None
Referee:  Juan Antonio Fernandez Marin (Spain) who was replaced at half-time by fourth official and fellow Spaniard Jose Javier Losantos Omar.
Attendance: 40,185. A small group (150) of Kiev fans were given seats in lower part of Milburn and as in 1997 appeared to be mostly UK-based, with Ukrainian flags proclaiming contingents from Manchester and Edinburgh. There were one or two spine-tingling moments from the crowd: the defiant roar when the first two goals went in, and the late "Newcastle, Newcastle, Newcastle" shouts just before the referee blew raised the hairs on the back of the neck

Half time:  Newcastle 0 Dynamo Kiev 0

47 mins  Controversy as the stand-in ref allowed Kiev a throw-in down the right which was clearly ours. However, the move that followed was top drawer and when the ball was played through to Shatskikh he lashed it first time past Steve Harper in off the post. Not dissimilar to his goal in the home tie, just about 20 yards closer.... 0-1

58 mins Nolberto Solano's corner beat the near post runs and landed invitingly for Gary Speed who dived headlong and made a reasonable contact. The keeper should have done better and he got a hand to the ball that deflected it onto his head and in past the defender on the near post at the Gallowgate end. 1-1

69 mins Alan Shearer had defender Husin at arms' length as the ball was played into the box. In turn, Husin had ahold of Al's arm but nothing that goes unpunished week in week out. Shearer protested and the ref gave it. At one stage he looked like he might have been booking Shearer but it was the defender who got the card. 

There was a moment of tension as the referee insisted that the ball was on the spot but Alan Shearer kept his nerve and tucked the ball to the goalkeeper's right in the Gallowgate goal. 2-1

Full time:  Newcastle 2 Dynamo Kiev 1

Sir Bob said:

"The group will be decided on the last match, it's gone to the last match. Obviously Kiev have a chance, but if Juventus play their best team and play to win and do win, then we have a big chance.

"But I can't predict results - if I could, I would be a rich man, not a football manager.

"We have a difficult match away from home and Kiev have a match at home - you don't know.

"I think that's a pretty good result for us to be honest. Second place in the group is up for grabs and now we have to win in Feyenoord. 

“It’s not easy. It’s a long hurdle and a draw wasn’t enough, so even though I was delighted when Gary Speed got the headed equaliser, it was still a long way to go, but we had enough in us to do it.

"We have special resolve and tenacity - I don't know how the players keep coming up with it. To win three times in seven days says a lot for the players' honesty and endeavour and commitment, 

I can only hold up my hands and compliment them on it. We never gave it up and we've battled on.

On the loss of Bramble and O'Brien:

"It put us in a difficult position to be honest, because it took away two attacking options that I had in my head to try to win the game."

And talking about the matchwinner: 

"Shearer did not change his mind about where to place his penalty - and you need people who can keep cool in those situations. We've got some very good penalty-takers in the team, But obviously he's the calmest and the coolest. He's been in that kind of position numerous times before for both club and country."

Former Rangers man and Dynamo Kiev coach Mykhaylychenko said:

"We haven't deserved the defeat tonight. We will try our best. We're still in second position and we will fight to stay in this same position at the end of the first group stage."

And turning to the Juventus victory over Feyenoord:

I can't say it's not a good result for us, that wouldn't be true."

Match Stats

Shearer's winner was was our 100th goal in Champions League, UEFA Cup, Cup-winners Cup and Fairs Cup ties. 

Our all-time record in those competitions is:

Played:63  Won:31  Drawn:12  Lost:20 

A third goal in the Champions league for Alan Shearer - he scored against Rosenborg in 1995/96 from the penalty spot for Blackburn Rovers, then at St.James' for us in this year's qualifying tie versus Zeljeznicar - at the Gallowgate end as was tonight's effort.   

A third toon European goal for Gary Speed, all in different competitions, all at St.James' Park (Zurich in the UEFA Cup and 1860 Munich in the Intertoto) 

Comeback kings for the second time in four days and fourth time this season (behind to West Brom and Liverpool - recovering two goals in the latter game to claim a point)

Our three home crowds for the competition this season:

Feyenoord: 40,540
Juventus:   48,370
Kiev:         40,185

= 129,095 or 27,484 unsold seats (based on a claimed capacity of 52,193)

Add in the 34,067 at the qualifying game and the figure rises towards the 45,000 mark.

Amazing, remarkable, unexpected - and that's just the decision to leave Shola Ameobi on for the whole game....

Seriously though, the bare facts of a 2-1 home victory mask the depths of misery and heights of emotion that we touched during the evening as another page of European football history on Tyneside was written. 

With obituary notices being composed in the press box and the crowd desperately trying to rally their heroes after conceding a goal, the lads once again summoned up something from their boot straps to get past a menacing Kiev side. 

Of course we've been down this road before and after the equaliser it's almost as if it was then expected that we'd go on and get a second goal. This duly came to pass and then it was the old Alamo routine - heart-stopping moments arriving every few seconds as crosses kept arriving in Harper's area.

And doing his best to get them clear was Alan Shearer, also somehow managing to pop up at the sharp end to give the ITV viewing nation another masterclass in spoiling tactics. 

Time and time again, the ball and a crowd of defenders went into the corners, Shearer emerging having won throw-ins and run down the clock in familiar fashion, with the odd free kick gained for variety.

That he started doing this with eight minutes left seemed to confuse one or two punters, who assumed we were in the final seconds of the game and vacated their seats. 

Of course they'd already witnessed more prime Shearer work in the 69th minute, when he intimidated the stand-in referee into awarding a penalty by his sheer presence alone, taking full advantage of contact made by a Kiev player. It can be argued that his protracted questioning of the Kiev goal followed by more angry glares aimed at the official thereafter softened him up over a 20 minute period.

As Ron Atkinson said on the box, "Shearer almost got the whistle and blew for the penalty himself."  

Thank the Almighty that we got that lucky break (making up for some previous ill-fortune in this competition, notably the Shearer Turin "goal") as we'd not exactly had Reva bounding across his line previously, the Speed equaliser excepted.

Shearer was too frequently isolated in the opening half, as United had a lopsided look about them, partly due to the difficulty Solano and Jenas were having in getting forward down the right as easily as Robert was doing on the other side. 

That of course was mainly due to the fact that unlike the Frenchman, Nobby and JJ were attempting to stem the white-shirted tide making their way towards Griffin. Solano later went off knackered, while Jenas kept going through a sticky patch when things weren't falling for him, but he didn't skulk out of the firing line.

The lack of defensive work from Robert manifested itself in spectacular fashion in the dying moments as a Kiev player glided within five yards of him en route for our box. 

Our man stood stock still, save for a twitch of his head, presumably to get a better view of the rapidly-disappearing opponent while fans in what used to be the benches howled in disgust and derision.

Even by his standards this was staggeringly arrogant and lazy. 

Robert is capable of the most sublime crosses, such as the beauty that zeroed in on Shola's head in the first half. However his bouts of indolence must frustrate the hell out of his gut-busting colleagues and one dressing room tear-up last season was as a direct result of his 'laissez faire' attitude. As they say in Dunston.

The fact is that at least until Viana or someone else assumes the mantle of provider-in-chief, we need his attacking input. However Robert isn't the first player to have this sort of criticism levelled at him - Ginola being the obvious one, but a certain bandy-legged local radio pundit getting grief back in the era of kipper ties from the devil himself, Gordon Lee.

As the first half wore on, we again built up something approaching a head of steam as we had after going behind against Charlton on Saturday. Unfortunately the chances that were created fell to Ameobi not Shearer - in particular one header that Al would surely have propelled into the net, along with any obstacles in his path, like defenders.

While Robson himself said that he was unable to make the offensive substitutions because of the defensive problems, that still doesn't excuse leaving Ameobi on or even starting with him.

It's always difficult to slag a Newcastle player off (especially a home-grown one) without feeling vaguely guilty, and the criticism in this report stays on the page, not thrown as abuse in the ground. However, the lad just isn't up to the job of goalscoring, partnering Shearer or playing effectively as part of the team.

It might seem churlish to criticise the lineup of a winning team, but the fact that we won both this and the Charlton games with Ameobi in the starting XI is little more than circumstantial. 

There will come a point soon when the honeymoon ends and reality intervenes. 

We almost won this game despite him, not because of him and after 60 games I just don't see anything changing. Like I said, not what we want to write, but better to be brutally honest than print insubstantial froth and cobblers like the local press.

In defence Bramble and O'Brien were both off the field by half time, hamstrung and cramped respectively by the movement of Kiev. That presented Robson with the opportunity to put Hughes back in the middle and he didn't let us down.   

The same could be said of Dabizas, who came on and strained every sinew for the cause - we've mocked him before but will always pay tribute to his efforts when appropriate.

We held on and Kiev lost their third match on this ground, despite a big effort in the latter stages. Cue big applause, wide grins from the lads and clenched fist salutes - all wholly justified. 

Taken as a single match this was a gutsy display and a deserved victory, with that crucial element of good fortune for the penalty. Three home wins in a week against any opposition is worthy of praise, especially two European big guns.

The nagging feeling persists though, that no matter what happens in Rotterdam (and Kiev), that the failure to score against Feyenoord on Tyneside will ultimately see us depart from the Champions League. 

It's entirely in keeping with this club for us to lose that match, while playing better than against the two home opponents we beat leaving us standing on the verge of a failure - increasingly glorious but a failure nonetheless.

There's nowt wrong with the UEFA Cup though - and a third round spot would present the possibility of eight more games and a final in Seville next May. That should be enough to put me in a box by then, if tonight's white knuckle ride is any indication...

Biffa
 
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