Chronicle has a report yesterday about Newcastle United chairman Chris Mort who was tight-lipped when he left the JJB Stadium after the dismal defeat by Wigan Athletic. Contrasting to him, a lot of Toon supporters were up in arms against manager Sam Allardyce.

To speak the truth we have a (what can only be described) wretched performance and result after coming hard from behind twice on a 2-2 home draw with Derby last Sunday. At JJB Stadium, 5,000 Toon Army chants after the Latics took the lead and forcing United to have a chasing game once again in the spare of three days.

The travelling Geordies also shouting a call for Alan Shearer to be brought into the St James’s hotseat. I thought for some reasons the call for Geordie legend Shearer is probably a good thing to try, but in the capacity of becoming Big Sam’s number two, not to replaced him as the new manager of Newcastle United.

On the same day, the man who can make all the decisions, United’s owner Mike Ashley was sitting right in the middle of the Toon Army once again, with his black-and-white strip. One of our contributor Mungo, who was also inside the crowds last Wednesday said that Ashley looks dejected.

Sam Allardyce has two-and-a-half years contract with Newcastle worth around £3m-a-year, together with more or less of the 20 current backroom staff who are working with him. Those are the fact that nobody ever think about the other possible conflict if we do the axing of Big Sam.

My honest opinion is to starting everything once again from zero was not the best choice for us at the moment. Mike Ashley will need to think wisely before making any decisions about Big Sam at least until the last game of 2007 tomorrow against Chelsea.

Meanwhile, after the game Chris Mort refused to make any comment regarding to the result but he told the Chronicle about the same old story who seems to raised once again at the club.

“You lose a game – and lose it badly – and you are under the cosh, especially if you are the manager.” Mort said as quoted from the Chronicle, “I cannot blame the fans for what they were singing. We weren’t good enough and you don’t need to be an expert to see that.”

Newcastle chairman understands perfectly how the Toon Army have spends their hard-earned money and the only thing they want to see in return was Newcastle fight for the game and do an awful lot better than they did at Wigan. It was noticeable again at the JJB there was no support (once again) for Big Sam.

And to give response to the Unsatisfied Toon Army, Allardyce says on the official site that he does not blame the Toon Army for their reaction during the disappointing Boxing Day defeat at Wigan. He said that if he was one of them he would be singing what they sang because we’re not good enough.

Allardyce admitted he and his teams are have to accept the new pressure and use it as a positive thing, not being as negative, not shrivel and die. He asks his players to wear their heart on the sleeves and go on fighting back because that is what gets you out of current difficult situations.

“Then you use the abilities you have, but we can’t rely on ability alone to win us matches. You need more than that to win games in this league.” Allardyce said.

Any difference between them? Maybe it’s just where their team position in the Premier League table, besides that both have been failed to secured a winable fixtures into the grab. More worst to us, Big Sam and his “lazy” squad totally awful, disintegrated and showing no passion once again.

“We picked a side to live with the tempo we knew they would try and play at, and simply from start to finish we didn’t manage to.” Allardyce said, quoted from SkySports, “We gave away too many silly free-kicks, and conceded a goal which could have been avoided.”

It was Alan Smith silly challenge who starts the process to the only goal at JJB Stadium. I think Smudger misjudge Big Sam’s instruction to play as usual and not worried to do any tackles, but forget to think which one is necessary and was not.

It’s also interesting to examine Shay’s current performance. Many of goals he conceded recently was come from a dead ball set pieces and long shots. Is he still good enough to be United’s number one or should we recall Harper at Stamford Bridge?

Our defenders are also have the part in any goals we conceded so far, but in my honest opinion, some of them were the one that Given usually did successfully to save. I also noticed one situation where he does look panic and almost made an own goal.

“There was the same amount of chances for both sides, but the free-kick turned it in Wigan’s favour in the end.” Allardyce added more, “Wigan worked hard, and didn’t allow us to play, but when that happens you have to roll up your sleeves, use your skills and brain power to overcome that, and Wigan were very good at that. I can’t knock them for that.”

From the fans perspective, Allardyce tactic was again the same thing as he always did so far this season. Emre was playing too deep with only Geremi (?) providing a little attacking support with Milner and Duff wide. Viduka cutting a lone figure up front.

We just didn’t have any creative ability in midfield to distribute the ball to the wide players on both wings. And we still don’t have anyone with the pace to follow up the attack. The plain facts are that things are simply not improving, and following a spell where the crowd appeared to shock at least some of the players into taking the situation by the scruff of the neck, we seem to have slipped back to where we were a few weeks ago.

I only can hope they lads will stay on focus and not conceding too many against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on the weekend and at least give us any dignity to end the first period of this season.

Big Sam (still) said today after the Derby match we are on a run because we are (still) undefeated, in one of the most disgraceful game we ever played this season at home. Without wanting to start the pressure again, I’m feel embarassed by the way we play these days.

Sam also said we were lucky to have several injured defenders returning to the squad, and that will give Newcastle United more defensive options for the busy Christmas and New Year period.

Today we have Claudio Cacapa and David Rozehnal began as United’s central defensive pairing. Unfortunately, we are still suffering an early goals in both first and second half, and today it was Rozehnal who was taken off and replaced by Steven Taylor before the hour mark.

If the last time it’s Cacapa who was being off after just 17 minutes of play in second half because he is having a hamstring injury, this time Allardyce said there’s no injury problem to Roz but he’s bring on Taylor as a tactical change to handle Derby’s aerial ability.

“There’s no injury to David. It was a tactical change. I thought we needed a bit more aerial power to cope with Steven Howard and his threat. It was their first point of attack.” Big Sam added, as quoted from the official site, “The defensive problem has cropped up again - but we’ve got more options available in defence.”

Allardyce also said he was relieved that United finally grabbed another late goal but this time no win but it’s just for an embarassing equaliser.

Newcastle failed to taking the advantage of playing at home against bottom-of-the-table Rams. For them two goals against us added their away goals tally up to three. The first one is when they scores against Manchester United.

“We are very disappointed, “said Big Sam, “but we are on a run because we are undefeated. We should have beaten Derby and it’s our own fault all together that we didn’t.”

“We know we should have won this game but we haven’t lost it and now we have to go forward with our undefeated run.”

Realistic or not, we are still far away from being a good solid team each week. Although we won any, we are still have some problems to deal with. The defence still need more attention and if we are playing like this the other night we take on Arsenal, we are buried deep.