Half time: Newcastle 1 Bolton 0

55 mins The ball was played wide left to Anelka and Carr jumped for a ball he was never going to reach. That left Anelka a free run to the byline and his cross picked out Diouf who had ran to the near post past a static Bramble. The forward goaded the Gallowgate end as he celebrated along the goalline towards the corner flag.  1-1

57 mins A harmless enough free-kick from the right was flicked on after Ramage and Bramble both missed their headers. Again this left Diouf free to head past Harper while Carr admired the goal from the edge of the area. The celebration was repeated, although it wasn't quite as animated as the first time. Unlike the Gallowgate-enders who were straining to get at the goalscorer. 1-2

Full time: Newcastle 1 Bolton 2

Glenn Roeder commented:

"It does simply come down to having to defend better. It is the old saying, it takes a second to score a goal and we have been punished.

"If you look at the two goals they scored and you look at the part we played in those two goals, it is very poor defending and the players have to be man enough to put their hands in the air and accept that. 

"It is unacceptable. This is the fourth time this year we have scored first and although we won the opening game against Wigan, we have only taken a point against Everton in the others.

"Against Fulham, we conceded two extremely poor goals and you have to say the same today.

"It was a mad two minutes which cost us very dearly.

"I am concerned and the players are concerned. We had a long talk after the game in the dressing room and they are equally disappointed with what happened out there in that couple of minutes as I am."

"It was going fine until they equalised. We were playing a team that is flying high near the top of the table and it was nearly one-way traffic in the first half.

"I thought we were excellent. If young Ramage takes a golden opportunity to put us 2-0 in front, we would have been a lot more confident going in at half-time to close the game out and take three points."

"We've shot ourselves in the foot. It wasn't what Bolton did, it is what we did to ourselves.

"The manner of the defeat concerns me greatly and was typical. It was unacceptable defending and it has to stop and stop quickly.

"The only thing we can do is get back on the training ground and work hard."

"Individuals have to do their jobs but they also have to work as a unit and stop the opposition scoring.

"Over the next 11 weeks we will play a minimum of 19 games and we have to get back to winning."

Steve Harper added:

"We had a bit of an inquiry. There were a few things said which will stay in the dressing room, but they maybe needed saying.

"As good as we were in the first half, or the first 55 minutes, two minutes in the second half have cost us.

"That is three home games in a row in which we have taken the lead, only to lose it. We have dropped eight points, and it's hard to take.

"We were excellent in the first half and had we got the second goal, it might have been a different story.

"It is desperately disappointing - we have given someone two tap-ins in the middle of the goal from seven yards.

"When we are 1-0 up, maybe we are going too much for a 2-0 win. One of the things that was said in the dressing room was that we have got to learn how to win 1-0."

"We win as a team and lose as a team. We have got to put the work in day in, day out and go back to basics."

Sam Allardyce said:

"It is a measure of how far we have come this season. The only way Newcastle found an opportunity to score a goal was by what could be deemed as a dubious penalty and probably one more chance after that that was put over the bar.

"And that was with us playing well below par in the first half. We decided to drop off, but we did not decide to actually close down when we did drop off, and that caused us quite a few problems.

"In the second half, we changed it around and we said we were going to squeeze from the front.

"The players needed to up the tempo, they needed to put the back four of Newcastle under a lot more pressure and it worked an absolute treat.

"It pulled us back from 1-0 down to win the game comfortably 2-1. I am just so pleased for the lads because that first-half performance looked like the two weeks off was the worst thing that could happen to us.

"But we turned it around with a terrific performance in the second 45 minutes and won a game away from home having come back from 1-0 down, and that is a very, very difficult thing to do indeed.

"It has given us three wins on the trot - three wins on the trot on Sky. I am just wishing they were at Blackburn Rovers next week, but I do not think I can persuade them to do that."

On form this result wasn't a shock, the visitors arriving on the back of a win over Liverpool and possessing a defence unblemished in their previous four outings. 

However, for the first 50 minutes of this game we were in control against an oddly lack-lustre Bolton side - who showed little more than we had done in our recent away disappointments at Anfield or Old Trafford.

And as Liverpool and Manchester United had done, we went in at the interval a goal to the good after dominating the play but not having inflicted irreparable damage on the visiting side.

From the 55th minute though, it looked as if we were the ones who'd taken a bung, not the Bolton boss (allegedly). It's certainly difficult to account for our complete misplacement of the plot following the equaliser and the fact we shambled through another innocuous thirty minutes before Wiley put us out of our misery.

Post-match, the Manager, goalkeeper and most pundits laid the blame at our much-derided defence, with a side swipe at the rest of the side for not helping them by presenting any obstacles further up the field.

However we don't wholly subscribe to that viewpoint - or the related one about learning to hold on to a single goal advantage.

While the defence is undoubtedly letting us down and all those selected at various times this season there are culpable, there's a damn sight more wrong with the side than the back four.

Ramage's miss in the first half ultimately proved to be one of the turning points of the game, but his presence in the opposing box at that juncture told its own story.

The defender had turned up in a similar spot against Levadia, with the game and the tie won.

And here, although we were one ahead, Ramage was able to get forward due to the disinterest of Bolton, who at that point looked there for the taking. 

While his was a bad miss though, at least he popped up in a goalscoring position and had a go - would that our failing midfield were able to say the same.

Duff continues to trade on a past reputation earned at other clubs, while Solano returned from a seven match absence looking as burnt out as he did back in August.

And as for the Turkish maestro, a translation of Belozoglu is surely "liability", as he once again showed more interest in squabbling with opponents than beating them with the ball.

Frankly it's a continuing mystery what he brings to the party - no goals, no assists, harmless free kicks and a disturbing inability to find a team mate with a pass. We got rid of a bloke who did all that - Faye.

Obviously being banned from international football for his loutish behaviour failed to provoke any self-analysis, as his short fuse continues to be very evident.

The manner of our goal was also significant, as once again we relied on a piece of good fortune from the officials to get off to a good start. 

It's as well that we were handed that so-called rub of the green though, as we never looked like scoring a "proper" goal of our own.  

Despite being gifted the perfect start, we again failed to increase our advantage and responded to going behind by resorting to an insipid attempt at route one that Bolton coped with easily.

Having two bone idle strikers doesn't help - while it was galling to see high balls tossed forward to Martins, a lack of incisive runs from the expensive striker restricted the choices open to those tasked with teeing him up with chances.

The Rossi situation remains a mystery also, with questions increasingly being asked as to exactly what purpose his presence on Tyneside is serving. He just isn't playing often enough to benefit himself or us at the moment. Seeing Chopra in goalscoring form at Cardiff just adds to our annoyance, giving people with short memories an easy line about us letting another one "escape." 

But with Ameobi and Martins ineffective today, the loanee was given precisely six minutes to try and turn things around, ahead of a midweek game that he's not eligible to appear in.

Similarly Luque and Sibierski didn't get a look in - the former had scored two rakers for the reserves and then netted for a Catalan XI in his last two outings  but wasn't even on the bench for this one.

Meanwhile the latter would surely have been more use to us than Rossi in the closing stages - if nothing else for his bald head to be a directional marker for the randomly lumped-forward balls that we resorted to playing.  

We exhibited little skill or thought and zero belief when the going got tough and were still consoling ourselves from the equaliser when caught by a second sucker punch. 

That lack of belief from the team was mirrored by the crowd, who barely mustered a roar when we forced a late corner and deserted in their thousands when N'Zogbia whacked it straight out of play.    

Looking for positives at present is a fairly fruitless pursuit.

We have a squad of players where nobody is in form with games now coming thick and fast and the additional burden of a UEFA campaign that threatens to become a dead weight round our necks (don't even think about a League Cup run).

And while some people are getting het up about tactics, selections and substitutions, massive question marks over motivation and self-belief remain in our minds. 

Quite simply, whatever team we field should have more capability to create chances and be resilient to opposition pressure. 

While Roeder rightly made protestations last season about being forced to work with someone else's duds, he's now in the position of being let down by players who have joined the club during his managerial reign.

The end result is there for all to see and while the dip in crowds below 50,000 isn't the end of the world it has a significance as a snapshot of public opinion round these parts.

How many of those season ticket holders present wouldn't have bothered turning up against the Trotters were their wedge not already in the NUFC coffers is open to question, but the volume of spares we knew of up for grabs and the impossibility of moving those on told its own story.

Many supporters are disenchanted by what they are seeing served up to them for significant amounts of money, frustrated with the continual revisiting of past errors (both on-field and off-field) and pig sick of being outsmarted by thoroughly moderate opposition.

To see them voting with their feet is hardly a shock, even in this alleged hotbed.

Biffa

(honourable mention to USA-based Toon fan Brian, who spotted one half of NUFC.com lurking in Boston, MA, USA last week).

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