Well, now we know the answer. Despite giving Chelsea a helluva battle with a highly creditable 1st half performance, we were steam-rollered in the 2nd half and ultimately couldn’t live with a team in the Champions League Final and within a breath of stealing the Premier League from ManU.

It’s difficult to know what happened during the half time break to so utterly change the course of the game. Certainly without Viduka we seemed to lose all shape and organisation, and never really got back into the game from the restart.

We had worked extremely hard during the first 45 minutes, and seemed unable to continue making the telling runs, retain good possession, or provide support to the man in possession thereafter. John Terry revealed that Avram Grant had given his team a real rollicking at half time, so perhaps it was simply down to Chelsea moving up a gear or two.

Whatever the reason, the 2nd half was a real disappointment after such a thrilling opening 45mins. To be fair to Chelsea, they were excellent during the opening 30 minutes of that 2nd half, during which we were totally overrun in midfield.

I thought Taylor, Butt and Owen were our best performers on the day, although Martins caused Chelsea problems in the 1st half. Taylor handled Drogba terrifically well, and perhaps deserved his official MOTM award.

Butt had an excellent 1st half, being involved in almost everything for us, but like most of the others rather faded in the 2nd half. Owen worked his socks off all over the pitch. He missed a couple of difficult half-chances, but had a goal-bound shot cleared off the line by Terry.

I thought we ultimately lost it in midfield, where Barton in particular was poor, barely making a telling contribution in the entire 90mins. Smith ended up in midfield – I think. He was truly dreadful. We seemed to start the 2nd half in 4-4-2 with Martins and Smith playing up front.

With Chelsea running all over us, Smith dropped back into midfield leaving Martins on his own up front. This left us with no ‘out’ ball, and effectively conceding possession to Chelsea time and time again.

Tbph, I’m not sure what else we could have done in the circumstances, but I felt we’d have been better off telling Smith to stay forward, occupy Terry and Carvalho, and hopefully hold up the ball to allow others to get forward when we had possession.

As always, Smith was utterly useless in midfield, and we couldn’t possibly have been any worse off had he stayed up front with Martins foraging. There again…

Regarding Kevin Keegan, I didn’t see his post-match interview, but almost everything he is saying publicly right now concern me. I really don’t think he is happy with the management support behind the scenes at St. James’s Park, and I’m becoming increasingly concerned that, having kept the club in the Premier League, he may throw in the towel unless he starts getting the support he feels he needs.

One of his his most recent quotes is something like - “my relationship with Mike Ashley is perfect - I never speak to him”. Read into that what you will.

This was a game that provided us with a reality check, if one was needed, and confirmed just how far behind the Top 3 we really are. At our very best we can give them a game: drop below our very best by even a couple of percents and we are snookered.

For me, the game confirmed what I already knew – we have improved immeasurably under King Kev, but our midfield, in particular, is nowhere near good enough to take us back into the Top 6.

PS: nice to see Frank Lampard getting a little round of applause, after a few loons starting booing his introduction. Also nice to see him reciprocating on the final whistle. He seems a decent blerk to me, and has had a tough time personally recently.

This is nothing to do with helping or not helping the other team to win the title this season, and I can accept the defeat as long as we have been playing well thoroughly the 90 minutes.

It was another wrong player in the wrong place when Keegan once again give Alan Smith a probably his last chance in Black-and-White. He has not giving anything for this team since his move from Manchester United in summer last year. His one and only goal for Newcastle was in the pre-season match but after that he’s just a waste of money.

In the first-half we actually give the visitors so much to think about if they’re trying to play us, and we have an early chance to lead when Nicky Butt plays in Michael Owen with a smart lob and stolen a march on John Terry, with just Cech to beat, Toon skipper can only direct his first time volley over the crossbar.

With only around half an hour, Michael Owen once again has been giving great opportunity to beat the deadlock. Ferreira slides in to try steal the ball from Martins, but the Nigerian poised to strike in, the ball runs for Viduka whose his effort being kept out by Cech.

The ball rolls free again and it was Michael Owen who has the last strike for Toon but see his kick denied by Terry who is back on the line to clear.

But, the real show has come in near the dying minutes. Martins starts to causing problems, his cross sees Beye slash-in an effort wide of Cech’s target. While minutes before that a generous applause from the Toon Army to our Lads for Newcastle move that involving at least 20 neat-passes but unlucky end with a Chelsea goal-kick after Barton tries to get the end of Martins’ throughball.

The good story suddenly come to an end with Alan Smith having replaced Mark Viduka in second-half. Disaster coming in. Starting with the second corner for the visitors, and some sharp Chelsea passing start to cause us some real problems.

They finally works for a chance to an opening for Ballack inside the penalty area, the German is just about to pull the trigger but Steven Taylor arrives in the nick of time to divert the ball behind for a corner.

On the second period, we are never get the chance to get back into the game as good as we did in the first half, thanks to Alan Smith! It was Chelsea who dominate the game and they get the goal they deserve when Malouda is taken out by Faye on the right and received the yellow card.

Drogba clips over the free-kick to the near post where the sloppy defending from United release Ballack unmarked and he guides his header beyond Steve Harper to give the visitors the lead.

Our one and only chance this half coming again for Owen whose ghosted in to beat the offside trap but again his finishing inches away from connecting to level the scores. The game was practically end when they have the second goal in 82 minutes from a slick move from Lampard spring Malouda clear to finish the ball low under Harper.

Although very slim, but we still have the chance to finish in 10th place this season, something that is hard to imagine regarding to our relegation battle couple months ago.

To achieve that, we must win the last two matches against Chelsea and Everton. If we can do that we will have 49 points in total, with assumption Spurs lost in their final match at White Hart Lane against Liverpool and West Ham also lost at home to Villa.

The best chance we can get is to finish above Tottenham, which I will celebrate it all night long. So let’s concentrate for today match and hope the Lads can give all the very best of them at St. James’s Park.

A win today will also means alot to those who are lucky enough to get into the fortress St. James to watch the game live. According to the official site, United will select a season ticket holder at random from their database and the lucky fan plus a guest will be able to enjoy the first home game of the 2008/09 season in style with a hospitality package in the Magpie Suite.

This special treat is to celebrate more than one million fans passing through the St. James’ Park turnstiles. From our 20 home games this season, including Carling Cup fixtures against Barnsley and FA Cup replay against Stoke City, an aggregate of 988,419 fans have been recorded and the million mark will break through again with a confirmed 52,000 tickets sell-out today.