Full time: Newcastle 1 Charlton 1

Graeme Souness said:

"We can all see why our supporters are extremely frustrated. Multiply it several times and you have how the players feel and then several times again and that's how I feel. I wish we were playing next week but that's one of those things that happens in football. We just have to deal with it.

"I feel for my players because they feel they don't deserve the whistles. I have the easier job standing on the touchline. They feel the pressure but that's the price on the ticket - when you're not doing well you will get criticised.

"The only way to go forward is to stick together and don't start becoming frustrated. A trip abroad like this will help.

"They will be working extremely hard, with double sessions. They'll spend a lot of time together."

"The crowd have to understand that it was Charlton's game plan today - frustrate the crowd, and it transmits itself on to the pitch."

Jermaine Jenas reiterated that view:

"It's important that the fans stay behind us and try to stay positive, because what they do sometimes gets projected on to the pitch."

Charlton boss Alan Curbishley said:

"Coming into the game, and at the end of the transfer deadline, I said that our numbers were up, but we finished training yesterday and had lost four players.

"So we were very disappointed to go a goal behind after doing so well to keep things even, but the trick was to get straight back into it, and that's what we did with a great goal from Dennis.

"Then things opened up and we took the game to them but just couldn't get that goal. I felt we deserved it, but we just couldn't get it."

"Dennis had his chances, and I brought him in because I feel that, particularly away from home, he can do so much damage with his pace. I don't know about him getting a hat-trick, but I think he should have had a penalty when he was pulled back.

"If we had come away with nothing we would have felt hard done by. It's a great point for us, and it keeps our total ticking over.

"Again we are out-punching our weight in the league, but hopefully with a weekend off we'll get most of the injured players back."

Well, at least we've now managed to get the vocal levels up at St.James' Park.

Unfortunately in this game they were seldom directed in a positive manner - unless you count a collective rejection of the product being offered as being a positive.....

A polite greeting of the team before the start gave way to near silence, punctuated only by some rousing cheers as the two physio's tried to out run each other.

Wholehearted booing by the break was followed by the appearance of a local radio pundit on the field to draw the raffle, which brought forth sustained applause and shouts of Supermac. I think that's what's called a protest vote.

Into the second period then and cheers for a goal that stuck in the throat as we instantly exposed our soft underbelly to the opposition and were made to pay. 

Next up, increasing shouts for Robert and an outbreak of the Bellamy ditty from part of the Gallowgate, which brought an instant negative response from those around them. We also had the re-emergence of a chant that almost became Kenny Dalglish's theme tune: "Attack, attack, attack".

That was followed by a "home is the conquering hero"-type roar when the Frenchman replaced Bowyer, far more clean-cut than the substitution a minute earlier, when it was difficult to gauge whether Ameobi was booed off or Kluivert booed on.

For the final twenty minutes there was nowt but exasperation and frustration as a result of the efforts or otherwise those purporting to attack the Gallowgate end. 

Meanwhile, further failures in defence almost led to us going behind, precipitating further walk outs, as high up in Level Seven the Charlton fans garnered some applause from home areas for their chorus of "Graeme Souness is getting the sack."

Final whistle and blank-faced resignation from some shuffling away, shouts of Souness Out from a militant pocket of the East Stand and the odd individual howling incomprehensible insults into the darkening Tyneside skies. 

The booing itself wasn't too bad - most of the more vocal malcontents expressing their displeasure by sitting on the metro or the central motorway by then....

And we've just taken a point off a side higher in the league, to make it 1 defeat in 8 games in 2005. Are some people never satisfied? You want entertainment as well? Get yourself to Spearmint Rhino - if it's good enough for the players....

Souness may have slagged off Curbishley's game plan in the same way as he rubbished the long ball tactics of Allardyce a few months ago and in today's match programme spouted off about having no truck with fancy formations. 

However, after this display there are tens of thousands of people who would be grateful for some reassurance that there was a) any pre-match discussion or tactical planning or b) those players selected had actually spent any time training in the last week.

From the meagre fare on offer, it's tempting to conclude that the whole bloody lot of them have been brushing up on their grip and swing before pitting their wits against the tricky greens of Dubai's golf courses (and while we're on the subject, surely it's not part of R&A etiquette to have one's mobile phone turned on during a game?)

The only SJP regulars who benefited from our game plan against Charlton were the groundstaff, doubtless delighted that the manager is intent on minimising the wear on our new pitch by the simple measure of instructing his players not to use certain parts of it.

This game was a continuation of the inept display at Manchester City. Unfortunately there were an extra 48,000 pairs of black and white eyes scrutinising this rubbish and the players got a bumpier ride as a result. Make no mistake, we know when we're watching rubbish - we've got a lifetime of practice in it.

Precisely how we expected to win this match remains something of a mystery to mere mortals such as us.

An absence of width from the start meant that Shearer and Ameobi had little to work with, the Charlton midfield being rather more proficient than the Coventry one, meaning that the full backs had a job of work to do this Saturday.

Quite how our midfield managed to fill in their afternoon is a puzzle also. 

Dyer was the pick of them going forward and deserved his goal and man of the match award, but there was precious little else to quicken the pulse except the odd run of his that ended with a blocked pass or saving tackle.

Crosses or service to strikers? None. 

Set pieces? Rotten. Corners tapped in to a non-existent player at the front post. 

Shots from distance? Andy O'Brien had a go and brought a fumble out of Kiely, but that didn't seem to encourage anyone else.

Tactics? questionable. Robert was introduced to try and calm the fans, but as he has done time and again lately was more of a risk to his own side than a threat to others. Certainly Charlton found space to get at us down our right once Robert was on the field - but of course he was on there as our saviour at the other end....so what were the rest of them playing at? 

People keep trying to talk up the Shearer to play on theory, but on days like this he must feel like packing in at any minute, as the end of the season stretches endlessly off into the distance, rather than rushing up to meet him as was thought.

For a team of internationals to be incapable of supplying passes to a man with 250 Premiership goals continues to beggar belief. 

It can be argued successfully that he's not the player he was, but a look back through his toon goals show that for every solo rocket there's a non-flashy but decent finish to a decent buildup.

And yet Shearer still trots out the party line and says the right things to camera - more pundit than politician. If Souness is Blair, is Shearer Prescott or Brown? When does the mask fall though? 

We're not going to finish by trotting out trite lines about Geordies demanding flair, style and panache from their teams, loving the number nine and rather losing 4-3 than winning 1-0. Twaddle. 

All we want to see is people doing their jobs properly, some sort of team ethic and at least an attempt to play the game in something approaching an entertaining manner. 50,000 people don't turn up to watch chess matches and BBC1 didn't battle for the rights to transmit "Bridge Match of the Day" - if you don't provide something to get fans out of their seats, then they'll not be there - the days of blind loyalty to the United cause are another fallacy - just look at the crowds pre- 92.  

What we will say is that continuing to trot out mundane displays against average opposition will result in the Gallowgate crowd turning against Souness far quicker than the good citizens of Darwen did.

And when that happens, from past experience we know that the media will apply the pressure from all angles - and that the Chairman will end up acting to preserve his position as head of the clan. 

Souness might not have seen it before - but we have. A long-distance phone call from Dubai to Kenny Dalglish may well be the best thing he can do before the next game, if we're not to go through yet another rerun of the same old toon home movies and he's not to become another ex-manager defeated by this apparently impossible job.

Biffa

Reports