Five in a row

All aboard the relegation express runaway train. Our third straight 2-1 home loss had all the typical NUFC hallmarks about it. Let`s run through the checklist:

- Totally ineffective first period? Check. Jason Brown could have walked to the Black Bull out of the NW Corner gate and had a swift lager top for all the action his final third saw.

- Two comedy defensive efforts? Definitely a check. The Taylor-Coloccini axis well and truly imploded. The 'new Tony Adams` decided to let Chris Samba have a clear run in to notch the first, coupled with Taylor`s now obligatory finger pointing exercise as a blame passing exercise.

Meanwhile Sideshow Bob and Two Pools ended up so far apart for the second goal that Santa Cruz could have driven between them in a Hummer and still ended up in space to knock it in.

- Minor second half comeback? Check. A brief rally raised a flutter but never really convinced anyone that it would take place. Geremi, displaying a standard of ball control normally associated with two day heroin addiction withdrawal symptoms, could have done better with one chance but there was little else of note.

- Token Michael Owen consolation goal? Tick. This time from a penalty he won himself. It`s now 12 goals in 16 games for our little gem.

- Sh*te passing from all concerned? A massive check (not Petr). I think Opta stats for our team would show Newcastle having comfortably the lowest pass completion ratio of any PL team.

- Dwindling home crowds? Check. From the 50,000 against Hull down to 45,000 against Blackburn. For most teams, Arsenal and Man Utd apart, this would be a bumper turnout. 7,300 empty seats however doesn`t look pretty.

- New coach hyperbole? Oui. Despite Kinnear only being in the job one day he displayed the same tired old patter evidenced by Hughton in his brief spell.

- Lack of Cockney Mafia? Yes. No Ashley, Wise, Jiminez or Vetere. Good old Derek Llambias was there though.

Checklist complete. Full marks for Saturday`s Blaydon Bingo for the lads. Overall it was the same gutless, one-paced tedium we`ve become accustomed to since Sir Bobby left, only at a whole new lower level.

One banner declared that Ashley should stop killing our club. On the basis of the first half it`s already dead and the second half was only brief rigour mortis. The club has until November to arrest this slide otherwise I fear we`ll be too far gone, with the likes of Hull and West Brom already piling on the points.

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