After a court hearing this week, the request from Newcastle United for Barton to featured at both Merseyside fixtures at Anfield on this Saturday, and our final league fixture at Goodison Park on May 11 are both turned down.

For many games, even before Barton’s off-the-field problems, United supporters are often asking about his quality to play for Newcastle. I was first believe he will be the one who is before (in football) and can reduce his bad behaviour under the former Newcastle manager guidance, but the hope is long gone now.

The Anfield show this weekend will be Keegan 150th Premier League game as the manager of Newcastle United. With United, King Kev has 50-50 chance to get good result out there with the old record set to 2 wins and 2 losts.

So that’s the stats from the past, but for today’s reality we were probably will not have any chance this weekend. Without Barton and Emre is still out injured, KK will have to force Alan Smith back to midfield and make a debut start for Oba Martins to play for Newcastle under Keegan.

The other possibility is to add Faye as defensive midfielder and bring in Cacapa to pair with Taylor in defence. Enrique, who is playing against Blackburn last week, on the left-back and push Zogbia up to left-wing while Duff is playing as second line striker.

A goalless draw was poor reward for braving a bliddy freezing night to get a sight of the new lads. Nevertheless, it was a point gained against the league leaders, so was fairly creditable.

It was a lively, if error-strewn game. We started brightly, but Pool gradually took a grip on the game and ended the 1st half well on top.

We started the 2nd half well, having a 20 minute period on top, during which we created a couple of  half chances, with Baheng narrowly missing our best chance. However, Pool once again got a hold of the game and in the final 20 mins or so created a whole string of good chances but contrived to miss them all. Some of their misses were actually comical.

Wor giant keeper, Forster, made a few good saves, but has an awful propensity for punching everything rather than using his height to catch the ball. Not sure about him overall.

We defended quite well but a lack of control in midfield enabled Pool to use runners from deep to create a good number of chances. Kadar looks a decent CB, and perhaps shaded Edgar. Tozer puzzled me. He started well, strong in the tackle and used the ball well.

However, he took a knock and after that just didn’t seem to fancy it. For those of a certain age, I thought he looks remarkably like Stewart Barrowcolough!

As with the 1st team, our major problems on the night were a real weakness in central m/f and careless passing that repeatedly conceded possession. The wide men did ok. Brian Marwood’s lad, James, looks a useful player. Johnny Godsmark I really like. He is an absolute midget, but is brave and all-action, and makes really intelligent runs.

Up front we started with our up-and-coming Academy star, Ryan Donaldson, and Wesley Baheng. However, with Pool playing 5 in midfield Baheng had to drop deep, leaving young Donaldson up on his own. He certainly looks a player, but found it difficult against two giant CBs, and never really got into the game. Behang did ok, worked hard and looked lively.

Interestingly, despite not having a single recognisable name in the squad, Liverpool had 11 foreigners in their 16 man squad.

TEAM LINE UP

NUFC: Forster, Morris, Kadar, Doninger, Edgar, Tozer, Godsmark, Troisi, Donaldson, Baheng, Marwood.
Subs: Lough, Soderberg, McLaughlin, Taylor, McCrudden.

LFC: Gulacsi, Darby, Insua, Dominguez, Huth, Plessis, Crowther, Flynn, Brouwer, Nemeth, Putterill.
Subs: Bruna, Bouzanis, Kelly, Ayala, Simon.

Sad, very sad to see the way former entertainers team doing recently. I have to admit that Big Sam must take the England job in a matter of time sooner as Mike Ashley have said that he will not stand in Allardyce’s way if he goes for the England job.

The visitors only need less than a minute into second half and got the corner almost immediately from kick off: Gerrard swings a terrible corner in, but Hyypia can manage to flicks on the ball with his heel. There are four Newcastle defenders milling about.

The worst thing was none of them are willing to do any reaction and allow the ball to pass and ping off Kuyt’s knee. He wasn’t even looking the right way - and into the net from two yards. Absolutely no resistance whatsoever from Newcastle defenders, and the nightmare is haunting back. This one is really should have been prevented.

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