Roeder Doesn't Blame Striker

Glenn Roeder has urged the Toon Army to give £10million striker Obafemi Martins time to prove his worth. Yet it is the tactics of the manager that is causing the main concern.

The 21-year-old Nigerian has struggled in his two games so far, but the service given to him has hardly been to his strengths.

Roeder: 'There are a couple of things we have to take into consideration: he is trying to regain full physical fitness from when he arrived from Italy having been unwell for two weeks with flu.

'I never expected him to get through 90 minutes - I always thought he would do well to last 70 minutes or so. He has come from Serie A. We have got to be patient.

'It will take him a little bit of time to settle into the high tempo of the Premiership, but I saw enough promise from him that when he plays with Shola Ameobi, there is going to be a successful partnership there.'

'Goals change people's opinions. Because we lost (on Saturday), it will probably be said we did not play that well when I know there were lots of times during the game when we played very well, very well indeed. We had good possession, we passed the ball well and there was lots of urgency in our play.

'If I was sitting here and we had won 1-0, we would be having a completely different conversation. But of course, it is stating the obvious that we lost two goals, we were beaten 2-1 and people feel completely different about the performance. But I know there were enough players out there who played very, very well.'

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