Alex McLeish made one change to the Blues side that had won at Spurs with Mat Sadler coming in for Johan Djourou. I've been away all weekend, so have no idea why - whether Djourou was injured or not, I'm unsure. Maybe Arsene Wenger has insisted he wants him back in January, so we're preparing for life without him? Anyway, it meant that Rafael Schmitz moved to centre half alongside Liam Ridgewell, and for the first time since April 16 1927, Blues played a left back at left back.
Blues got an early lead through Cameron Jerome and had held their own until then, but once they scored they were dreadful for the remainder of the first half. Newcastle weren't overly impressive either, but Blues just continued to give the ball away. Gary McSheffrey and Fabrice Muamba were particularly culpable in midfield, whilst Sadler looked worse than rusty. It would be an injustice on rust to describe him as rusty. His distribution was appalling and at times he'd get the ball from Maik Taylor in plenty of space, then be so tentative that he'd be closed down and have to turn around and put Blues under pressure again.
Another cause for so much Newcastle pressure in the first half was Maik Taylor again cementing himself to his line. The ball flew across his six yard box on numerous occasions, and he just stands there and lets it. Sure, it's tough for Blues to find a 'keeper who commands his penalty area, as they're few and far between and are at big clubs, but surely it's not too much for us to ask to have someone who will command his six yard box? Taylor was poor in this respect, and whilst some will point to saves he made, several of these were a direct consequence of him not coming to get the ball in the first place.
Blues were desperately trying to hang on and get into half-time at 1-0, but Newcastle did score after a disputed penalty, and then you just hoped Blues could get in on level terms, such was their carelessness. They thankfully did, and Blues fans hoped that they'd regroup. Again, thankfully they did.
The second half was probably less eventful chance wise, but Blues were the better team. Seb Larsson missed a chance that was 1,073,982,677 times easier than the one he scored with last week, and when Olivier Kapo came on, he again showed his class and looked extremely dangerous. Newcastle, on the other hand, toiled and couldn't reproduce their first half form, which was down to Blues being much better and not continually losing the ball. If there was to be a winner, it looked more likely to be Blues again, although like last week, I'd have settled for a point.
It wasn't to be though, and in injury time Habib Beye scored Newcastle's winner with what I think was a header from a corner. Being four rows from the back of that away "end" at St James' and the goal being the other end, I thought Steven Taylor had scored, but the truth is that from that distance I could have thought it was Peter Crouch, Shaun Wright-Phillips or Mr Blobby.
First half: pretty poor. Second half: pretty good. After certain away defeats this season I've left feeling deflated and like Blues haven't even attempted to compete - I know I banged on about it in these reports. It wasn't the same feeling after this, however, as at least Blues had had a good old go. There were still plenty of positives to take from the game, and Blues will need to going into these crucial next four games that everyone has being looking at as being crucial since the fixture list came out. Nine points from those four games will be a good return, so we shall see. I said for a while that I didn't view either Spurs away or Newcastle away as being games we'd get points in, so to get four would have been superb, but I'll more than happily take three.
One final note, because I forgot to mention it above, is that after his torrid time at White Hart Lane last week, at left back, Rafael Schmitz again showed himself to be a quality centre half. He struggles at left back, but he's still looking like a fine centre half for McLeish's squad.