Newcastle United 2, Crystal Palace 0

Jan 28 2010 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

Arguably Newcastle’s best player this season, his absence will be acutely felt defensively and offensively, and it forced another reshuffle from Hughton, with Fabrice Pancrate coming on as an emergency right-back and Tamas Kadar moving across to the left.

Encouragingly, despite the defensive problems facing the manager, Mike Williamson had a good debut at centre-back, particularly when you consider he has not played a first-team game since August.

Powerful in the air, he did not look at all rusty and the timing of his arrival could not be better with Steven Taylor facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines with knee ligament damage.

The game had fizzled out before the break, but Lovenkrands almost got it off to a brilliant start for Newcastle, a lovely piece of control giving him the room to shoot on the turn only for his effort to fly over the bar.

It was something of a false dawn. Newcastle continued to look bedraggled and Palace uninspiring as the game deteriorated into a string of silly mistakes, fouls, offsides and misplaced passes. At least the introduction of new boy Wayne Routledge livened things up.

Warmly cheered on to the pitch by Newcastle’s supporters, he was jeered by the travelling fans, still upset at the way he left Selhurst Park for Tottenham.

It was another brief flurry of excitement with Ambrose getting the best chance to add to the scoring when he was left unmarked in the area only for Harper to get across to keep it out.

Nile Ranger could have made it a more comfortable last 10 minutes but got underneath the ball as he tried to head in Pancrate, although the youngster made amends, running on to Routledge’s through ball as Newcastle hit Palace on the break and finishing well.

A win is all that ultimately matters, but Newcastle need to buck their ideas up.