Nordstrom

Great attempt on goal by Shola there.

Lovenkrands nearly scored there.

Lovenkrands on for Best

Wasted by Guthrie.

Birthday goal for Colo!!!!

Harper...christ...what a save.

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!! Off the crossbar - Best

Ouch, Guthrie took a massive blow to the face from Enrique's clearance.

To be honest, I would much rather have Best having the shots towards goal rather than Shola.

Decent attempt of a cross by Gutierrez there. Cross like that and we may have a chance from a ball delivered from the wings. And Shola rockets another behind soon after.

Errgghhhm Shola rockets that behind.

Bassong set to play at LB?

Bale struggling.

Since when were the seats in the dugout branded with the SportsDirect logo?

Abysmal as always but pleased that he isn't making those rash challenges anymore. I can see he is taking time to think before acting but on the flipside, it's killing a lot of his own time so he fails to close down an attacking opponent. To summarise, he has improved but still utterly useless.

I was disappointed with some of his set pieces but otherwise another solid performance from a player who has made leaps and bounds to become once again a highly-rated midfielder. Absolute travesty that he picked up a yellow card today. Was a handball but unintentional and necessary for leverage. Webb was out of his mind.

The Newcastle of 2010/11 is the absolute antithesis of the Newcastle of 2008/09. It goes to show that a sense of team spirit can go a long way in getting good results. Ever since the start of our Championship season, I have been extremely proud of what he have set up here.

This is a f***ing wind up surely? He did give away the ball really cheaply at the end, which led to the counterattack they scored from. Saying someone is slow and is unable to retain possesion from a 10 minutes sub appearance after 6/7 months out is barmy. I'll just make it clear that I was only commenting on what I saw and I wasn't expecting much from him at this stage of his recovery. Another point which Raconteur brought up was that he was playing left mid which was perplexing as I wanted him to replace Barton in ET. I'm sure he will improve once he makes more appearances but I'm certainly not slating him for any lack of ability.

Any news on whether Carroll will be back for this one?

It seems that Best lacked the confidence during opportunities he could have buried the ball today. Riding off his hat-trick though, he was somewhat useful and won us vital set pieces which I was impressed by as we would usually lose position trying to pick the pass. If Carroll is out for any longer, I wouldn't hesitate to keep him in the starting eleven. As Cajun said, improved confidence in Best will reap dividends for the team.

Willo was extremely fortunate to have Colo clean up his mistakes in the first half. He had me worried for the first 45 but once he came out for the second half, he was a different man. He's made a quite productive partnership with Colo but he must improve his composure when the other team attacks on the break to maintain a more consistent defence.

Was caught off position very early on which got my heart racing but rose to the occasion very quickly to put in a MOTM performance. Quite impressed by his improvement this season, and now can we see what we bought Colo for. Brilliant standard!

Certainly has improved bucketloads from the Championship season. Often we were frustrated by his inability to move at an acceptable speed and his tendency to become missing during matches but he has certainly eliminated most of that from his game. Loved how he often tracked back when one of our defenders was caught out of possession, to then run hard on the counter.

Made some brilliant decisions today which kept us in the match in the first half. Was clearly up to the game today which was a plus. Can't fault him for the Gyan goal though. Really could only punch it out, and even caught Gyan by surprise. Solid performance.