KIERON Dyer presented the case for Newcastle United's embattled defence last night as he accepted his share of the blame for their poor start to the season.

With Andy Griffin and Andy O'Brien the latest inductees into Newcastle's Hall of Shame following their errors in the build-up to Feyenoord's winning goal on Tuesday, Dyer insisted he and his midfield cohorts were just as culpable.

The Magpies have fired blanks rather than bullets in five of their ten games this season, putting extra pressure on their much-maligned defence. Dyer, 23, absolved Alan Shearer from any responsibility for their abject Champions League record, with no goals scored and three conceded in their defeats to Dynamo Kiev and then Feyenoord.

But the England midfielder believes Laurent Robert and Nolberto Solano, as well as himself, must do more to ease the burden currently being placed on their backline.

He said: "It's at the stage now where the likes of myself, Nobby, Laurent and the attacking players have to look at ourselves.

"We've got to start scoring because we haven't scored in a game on five occasions this season.

"Despite that, though, it's still the defence that gets all the bad headlines, which is very harsh.

"We're putting our defence under an enormous amount of pressure by not scoring.

"If we had scored the early goal against Feyenoord that we should have done, it would have relieved the pressure on the defence and we could have gone on and built from there.

"There was a bit of a misunderstanding for the goal, and the shot also took a wicked deflection.

"It was the kind of goal you don't want to concede so early in a game, but it's typical of the way our season has been going.

"Our play to the final third is breathtaking at times, but then the final ball is just not happening.

"It's so hard to take, especially after our great season last time. But we have to get it right quickly or it will be a very long season.

"People said last season that me and Nobby were telepathic with our passing.

"But I don't know how many times I missed him with a pass against Feyenoord, and how many times he did the same with me.

"Alan Shearer has been immense up front, but maybe teams know our strengths now.

"Even so, we're still getting into the same positions as last season, but the final ball is letting us down far too many times."

A steady stream of Newcastle attacks foundered on Feyenoord's uncompromising backline at St James' Park on Tuesday as the Dutch side mounted a valiant rearguard action.

Robert had more success than Solano in trying to prise open the visitors' defence, but even when they got a sight of goal Newcastle were repeatedly denied by keeper Edwin Zoetebier.

Dyer reckons the only way out of their present malaise is plenty of toil on the training ground as they continue their demanding schedule of fixtures, with Birmingham City on Saturday followed by Juventus on Tuesday.

He added: "You can tell the crowd are getting frustrated, but the players are also getting frustrated.

"We now have to get our heads down and work extremely hard on the training pitch.

"Everyone is down because we played reasonably well against Feyenoord. We had a lot of half-chances but everything went to their keeper and that is disappointing.

"On paper and in the performance, we were a better team than Feyenoord. In my opinion, if Feyenoord were in the Premiership we would finish higher than them, so to lose to a team like that is very frustrating."

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