Dreadful Officials Cost Newcastle Dear Against Sunderland

To blame the officials exclusively would be unfair. Pardew was caught with his pants down and Il Duce's straight arm salute scored a direct hit on Pard's exposed rear.

The game was a Keystone Kops affair with more errors than an average Geordie's GCSE English script, and neither team seemed to understand that it is within the rules to pass a ball to a player in your own team. Every time a player received the ball, he ran with it. It was absurd. It was laughable. It was school boy stuff. Talk about headless chickens, this lot made Carlton Palmer look like Glenn Hoddle!

Mind you, the players were superstars compared to the two "assistant" referees. Newcastle had a perfectly legitimate equalising goal disallowed for offside, with the "assistant" a good yard and a half behind the play. Had that goal stood, Newcastle would probably have won the game.

Then there was Taylor's booking when the brilliant Mignolet dived on a loose ball that the Newcastle man was already committed to challenging for. Full marks to the keeper for his bravery but I'm not sure what Taylor was expected to do - apart from defy the laws of physics!

But there was still time for more Thomasin foolery when the little woman with the flag forgot to wave it when Sunderland scored a clearly offside goal. Well, what woman has ever managed to get her pretty little head around the offside law? It's a good job messers Gray and Keys weren't in the Sky Sports commentary team!

How serious is the injury to Krul? That could prove a huge loss for Newcastle. And how many chances does Cisse need before he scores? Amazing!