Magpies boss keeps his counsel on Boumsong gaffe

Boumsong, hardly a fans' favourite since he made his multi-million pound move from Rangers 14 months ago, showed his ability to lose concentration against the European champions yesterday.

He had a part to play in Peter Crouch's opener when he misjudged the weight of Jan Kromkamp's deep cross but things got worse in the second half.

Boumsong completely missed an easy clearance and was forced to haul down Crouch as he ran through on goal. Djibril Cisse converted the spot kick and the centre-back was red carded.

The erratic centre-back will now miss Wednesday night's FA Cup quarter-final with Chelsea through suspension, meaning Newcastle will have to reshuffle.

But caretaker boss Roeder would not discuss whether the player has been value for money since his £8m move but did point the finger at his mistakes.

"If you take aside the issue of the cost. Whether someone costs little or someone costs as much as Rio Ferdinand, the incident is a poor piece of defending," said Roeder, a former Newcastle centre-back himself.

"You won't get me to criticise him publicly. Any manager who criticised me when I was playing or another player after a mistake wasn't a good coach in my view.

"All the good coaches and managers do not publicly criticise the players. That doesn't mean when Jean-Alain and I sit down and go through the goals I don't have a view. But managers who come up and slate their players as rubbish are not people."

After Boumsong's dismissal he trudged pathetically around the outside of the pitch instead of heading straight down the tunnel, taking jibes from supporters at the same time.

And Roeder feels that highlights just what sort of character the Frenchman has. "Jean-Alain is very upset and who wouldn't be," he said.

"He is mentally tough because he could have taken a shorter route. As a person he trains hard and is a decent member of the squad. Nevertheless I will speak to him and we will view the evidence and talk it through with him.

"You can't continue to make mistakes. Goalkeepers are allowed none, defenders are allowed a few and he plays in a position that errors have to be few and far between."

Yesterday's defeat, only the second league reversal since Graeme Souness' departure, has left Newcastle some ten points behind sixth placed Blackburn with eight games remaining.

It was not particularly the result, more the manner in which Liverpool dominated and capitalised on mistakes that hurt the Tyneside supporters most.

Roeder, surprised by Liverpool's 3-5-2 formation, admitted: "It was a very tough afternoon. It was the same as at Manchester United because we conceded a goal early against a quality team. It made it even more difficult.

"We are thorough in our research of the team we play against and I think when they started with three at the back I was surprised. It's up to us to counter that but we found that hard.

"But the first goal, no matter what the system is, makes it much more difficult. At half-time we thought we could get something out of it. But the penalty incident killed us off.

"Our retention of the ball was not good enough. It didn't help to lose Charles N'Zogbia. But the biggest factor was the goal and we were chasing the game."

Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez was, unsurprisingly, more delighted with the outcome.

And he chose to talk about the game rather than the incident that infuriated Newcastle supporters. Djibril Cisse gestured to fans after being barracked for revealing a vest with the names of his family members on after his goal.

"I said afterwards that you have to play football," he said.

"It's better to think about the game and not what happened in the stands.

"For me football is the most important and it's not necessary to talk about these things after this result.

"We played well and as a manager I'm really, really happy. We tried to control Newcastle and we started really well.

"We created the first chance in the first minute and it kept coming."