Newcastle go down with a whimper

TRUST Newcastle to save the worst until last.

Trust Newcastle, when everything else was going in their favour, to throw away one final chance to save their Premier League skin. Trust Newcastle, when a draw would have been good enough to survive, to fashion an own goal from a shot that was going nowhere. And trust Newcastle to tumble out of the top flight with a whimper rather than a bang.

After weeks, some would say years, of shooting themselves in the foot, this time the self-inflicted wound is terminal.

Sixteen years and 20 days after they entered the Premier League with a one-goal win at Grimsby, the Magpies left English football’s top table with a one-goal defeat at Aston Villa.

A decade-and-a-half that included five top-four finishes, two FA Cup finals, a UEFA Cup semi-final and an appearance in the second group stage of the Champions League has been consigned to the history books.

The wheel has turned full circle and Newcastle are a footballing force no more.

When referee Chris Foy blew his whistle at 5.56pm yesterday afternoon, he signalled the end of a period that brought almost unparalleled success, but also contained moments of unparalleled folly.

The record books will state that Newcastle were relegated because they failed to beat Aston Villa, but the reality is somewhat different. Newcastle were relegated because, for the best part of a decade, they made one bad decision after another.

Managers came and went, a myriad boardroom figures made a succession of ever more damaging errors, and the standard of players wearing the black-and-white stripes sunk to a level that eventually proved the club’s undoing.

Yesterday, in the final act of a humiliating and acrimonious season, the mistakes of so many people finally brought a once-proud club to its knees.

The supporters who serenaded their fallen heroes long after the final whistle deserve more, much more, but it is hard to say the same of the employees who were present at the final curtain.

People like Fabricio Coloccini, a £10m signing, earning around £80,000-a-week, who was off and down the tunnel within a minute of the whistle.

If only he had been that quick for the rest of the season, Newcastle might not have ended up in the bottom three.

Or what about Obafemi Martins, the international marksman who blazed the Magpies’ best opportunity hopelessly over the crossbar, or Michael Owen, the superstar striker who finally hauled himself off the treatment table to trot about for 24 ineffectual minutes at the end?

It is highly unlikely that any of that three will be present on the opening day of the Championship season in August. Suffice to say, they will not be missed.

Newcastle’s squad is littered with such players, over-paid yet persistently under-performing.

If nothing else, at least yesterday’s events will lead to a purge that could see the club rediscover its soul.

There was precious little heart on display yesterday, with the Magpies failing to produce a single second-half shot on target, despite their urgent need for an equaliser.

Instead, the 3,500-strong travelling contingent was forced to watch the kind of black comedy that Newcastle have made their trademark all season. The absurd has been commonplace for the last nine months, so it was apt that the final nail in Newcastle’s coffin was a comedic one.

Mark Viduka made a decent fist of clearing a 38th-minute corner, and while Stilyan Petrov regained possession, there seemed little danger when the Bulgarian found Gareth Barry 40 yards out.

There still appeared little to worry about when Barry took aim, but the afternoon changed in an instant when Damien Duff stuck out his right foot in an attempt to block the midfielder’s shot.

The Irishman only succeeded in diverting Barry’s effort towards the bottom left-hand corner, and a wrong-footed Steve Harper could only watch in horror as the ball trundled its way into the net.

As a means of falling behind, it was both farcical and fitting.

It was also particularly damaging in terms of morale. Newcastle had only learned of Manchester United’s goal at Hull 12 minutes earlier, and were enjoying their best spell of the contest after struggling badly in the opening stages.

With Coloccini displaying all the failings that have seen him branded Newcastle’s worst signing of a particularly unproductive two years of trading under Mike Ashley, Villa’s pace and incision had threatened to rip the Magpies apart early on.

Gabriel Agbonlahor headed over after stealing ahead of Coloccini on the edge of the sixyard box, and Villa would have been ahead well before Hull fell behind if Harper had not produced a fine fingertip save to turn Craig Gardner’s rising drive over the crossbar.

Newcastle’s defence was predictably shaky throughout, but Villa’s was not much better, and the visitors twice came close to claiming what would have been a priceless lead before the deadlock was broken.

Steven Taylor was unfortunate – his swivelled 12-yard shot was cleared off the line by Carlos Cuellar – but Martins’ miss was unforgivable, with the Nigerian blazing over wildly after Viduka had juggled the ball into his path.

For all of his qualities, Martins has proved profligate on far too many occasions this season.

The price of his latest miss was apparent when Duff ’s deflection left Newcastle trailing, but instead of inspiring a rousing second-half reaction, the precariousness of the Magpies’ position appeared to force the club’s players back into their shells.

As a result, their efforts after the break were wretched, and represented a tame surrender rather than defeat in a blaze of glory.

Barry, James Milner and John Carew all passed up glorious chances to seal Newcastle’s fate, but the visitors never looked like exploiting their opponents’ profligacy.

They failed to produce a single second-half shot until substitute Shola Ameobi blazed over with three minutes left, and were a spent force long before Foy put them out of their misery.

By then, they had produced a neat summation of their campaign.

David Edgar, hopelessly out of his depth at right-back, was dismissed after hauling down Ashley Young. As a foul it was desperate, but no more desperate than the rest of Newcastle’s season.