Newcastle 3-3 Villarreal

Nowt upfront, Butt there was a hero...

Booed onto the pitch as he replaced the busy Emre, Nicky Butt turned in a 23-minute man of the match performance. During this 23 minutes, he ruined several Villarreal attacks and netted twice. Yes, really.

We started well, keeping possession and creating a couple of chances. But then Titus Bramble put a fantastic ball through for Diego Forlan, who thankfully only managed to hit the post. For the next 10 minutes our Spanish visitors found their feet and ended up scoring thanks to some more non-defending from Titus Bramble. We switched on a bit after that, with an accurate Nobby Solano freekick finding the head of Shola, for him to net is fourth goal in three games. Just before the break Stephen Carr got caught of out position and Forlan was away with only Titus to beat and Robert Pires in support. You can guess who got the better of that...Two-one to Villarreal at half time.

Now then the second half! Roeder took off Shola for Milner and changed the centre of defence by sticking Taylor and Boumsong in. It worked. Our second half defending, though far from perfect, was almost good enough. We pretty much had control of the game, but were set back on 62 minutes when an unmarked Rodriguez made it 3-1 to the visitors. At last we switched on and created a good few chances, with Damien Duff looking impressive and Milner popping up everywhere. But then, Luque went off (who hadn't had a bad game, putting a shot inches wide and not making any mistakes), Babayaro went off, and Emre was replaced by Nicky Butt. At this point I had almost given up, we now had Alan O'Brien and James Milner upfront. On 79 minutes a Milner corner looked to be floating in at the near post, but Nicky Butt jumped in and nodded past the keeper to make sure of it, game on. Just one minute later, Milner delivered from the opposite corner straight to the head of Nicky Butt, who flashed a header across goal and into the far corner. Get in! Nicky Butt not only scored, but was awarded man of the match for some excellent ball winning and superb long passes.

We really do need a striker, because sometimes there was just noone there. Ameobi is becoming a bit of a predator, but he can't do the job on his own. Luque isn't one for tap ins and is probably more suited to the left wing. Roeder seems to have his heart set on wide-play and if this going to succeed, we need two decent goal snatchers in the box, as well as some better crosses. Substitutes Ramage and Milner providing the best of Newcastle's. Duff played well in the second half, but doesn't go out wide to cross and rarely defends, hence Babayaro being caught out of position, which was slightly his fault, he never was quite in line with the other three defenders.

Its worth remembering that Villarreal are a very good team and provided tougher opposition than PSV today, and drawing with them is no shame. But some of the defending was worrying and I can't help thinking we would have won the game if we had a fully fit Michael Owen upfront.

"We're many things, but we're never boring" - Freddy Shepherd (yesterday)