Newcastle 0-1 Blackburn - Match Reaction

Saturday saw the Toon's 5 point lead at the summit reduced down to a slightly more uncomfortable 2 after what can only be described as an unexpected and slightly disappointing defeat at the hands of Blackburn Rovers.

In a game that brought around changes, 6 to be exact with Tuesday night's Quarter Final away trip to Hull probably in mind, it was clear from the off that the starting XI did not have that chemistry and charisma that we have warmed to over recent weeks. Changes saw Jesus Gamez, Mbemba, Yedlin, Hayden, Atsu and Mitrovic come into the starting line-up, all of which are definitely players who should be performing in the second tier, however things just did not seem to click and eventually we were punished, with Charlie Mulgrew putting away a close range volley on the 75 minute mark.

During what turned out to be a rather dull game, we did have a couple of chances from the likes of Ritchie and Shelvey, however, to say top goal scorer Dwight Gayle was missed would be a massive understatement - he only came on for a cameo appearance in the last 5 minutes. Mitrovic appeared to be back to his misfiring ways, but in his defence, there was also a lack of quality and creation from the players behind him, with Atsu and Ritchie being rather inefficient on the wings and Perez having yet another poor game tucked in behind.

On a day where your creative players don’t have that spark and lack the ability to create, that only encourages the opposition to have a go and try and steal the 3 points and to be fair to Blackburn, that’s what they did, taking their big chance to snatch victory.

As negative as this may all sound, things really aren’t that bad at all. To be able to bring such good quality players into the side is a factor that should not be taken for granted and you can only imagine that the competition for places in the starting XI has only heated up more; it should most definitely be expected that we will bounce back next league game, away to Nottingham Forest on Friday, as well as hopefully sealing a semi-final tie in the cup, which would most likely make us totally forget about yesterday’s slip up.

As good of a streak as we may have been on, it had to come to an end eventually before complacency became a factor - the result hopefully being a bit of an eye-opener to the squad that things will not be as easy as they may have been somewhat expecting.

Overall this is a result that should certainly not be dwelled on, these results will come around once every so often and we've got to look forward to the next game and back the boys as we usually do. United.