AFTER last season's 6-2 humiliation against the Premiership champions, Kieron Dyer was more than happy to lead the call for the Magpies to avenge that defeat and prove that their title aspirations were genuine.

Dyer, in fact, had more reason than most to prove April's reverse was a mere blip in the Magpies progress from also-rans to potential winners.

The England midfielder was in direct opposition to the man that ensures his international ambitions have been restricted to the unfamiliar role of left midfield, or mere cameos in England's centre.

Paul Scholes is still the best attacking midfielder in the country and his hat-trick at St. James Park last season merely emphasised that.

On Saturday - in front of Sven-Goran Eriksson - Dyer was on top early on but the decisive blow was landed by Scholes just before the hour mark.

In the first-half Dyer was energetic and busy. He closed down in midfield like he's never closed down before. His best work was, in effect, going backwards but he showed in that time there is more to his game than clever interchanges and runs deep into enemy territory.

He harried, fought and unsettled Scholes, Roy Keane and Eric Djemba-Djemba - even charging down Scholes' free-kick on ten minutes.

Scholes was mainly a spectator for most of the opening period, but just before the half-time whistle the first warning bell sounded.

The quick-thinking ginger genius stole the ball off the toes of Dyer, the subsequent move only ending with Aaron Hughes' desperate clearance over his own crossbar from six-yards.

Scholes knows games are rarely won before half-time - he was of course part of the Man. United side that turned around a three goal deficit at White Hart Lane in September 2001.

With the visitors keen to come at Newcastle in the second-half, it seemed that opportunities would open for Dyer to display some of his trademark lung-bursting runs.

But unfortunately the exertions of the opening 45 minutes appeared to take more out of the 24-year-old former Ipswich midfielder than he thought.

Scholes was now in the ascendancy and a 30-yard ball with the outside of the right boot that just failed to put Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer in on goal was the taste of things to come.

On 56 minutes, with the Red Devils now level, a superb move down the right ended with a cross that was cushioned by the head of Ruud van Nistelrooy straight into the path of Scholes eight yards out.

Unfortunately for him he had more time than he thought, and a first time effort was straight at a relieved Shay Given.

With Keane and Djemba-Djemba now acting as a controlling force in midfield, Scholes was causing havoc for the Newcastle defence with his runs.

A fact not lost on Sir Bobby Robson, who had a quiet word with Lee Bowyer to the effect that the former West Ham man was ordered to stay close to him.

Not close enough however. A minute later and Scholes was on the end of a beautifully clipped ball in from Keane and it was 2-1 on the hour, Bowyer failing to cut out the cross.

By this point Dyer appeared to have shot his bolt. It wasn't until 63 minutes that he forced his way into the opposition box - a run which came to nothing.

His one chance to score was wasted after 80 minutes. He was teed up by Alan Shearer but again showed a lack of a natural goalscoring instinct, and his indecisiveness allowed John O'Shea to clear.

In his defence he wasn't helped by a clearly tired Gary Speed, with Dyer shouldering far too much of the chasing duties after half-time. But any hopes of revenge were cruelly extinguished by last season's destroyers in chief - van Nistelrooy and Dyer's Nemesis Scholes.

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