Brighton 1-1 Newcastle: Toon denied late win after much improved 2nd half display

The third game of our current interim period between Steve Bruce and a new manager was seemingly being proved to be our last one with Eddie Howe spotted attending the match with Amanda Staveley.

The most urgent and worrying thing about this match is that we started the evening, sitting dead bottom of the league with Norwich beating Brentford in their 3pm kick-off.

We were now the only club in the league to not win a game and we were faced with an up-hill battle to get one against a fantastic Brighton side.

There were a few changes from our Chelsea defeat with Almiron, Murphy and Shelvey coming in but concerns were raised amongst Newcastle fans with the likes of Dubravka, Fernandez, Willock and Schar continuing to miss out.

20 minutes in Clark gave away a penalty with a silly challenge on Trossard. The Brighton man definitely made a meal of it but Clark simply didn’t touch the ball in his tackle. Trossard made it look easy as we knocked the penalty down the middle and granted Brighton a 1-0 lead.

The commentator nails exactly the problem with our team, ten minutes after their goal, saying “I don’t know what Newcastle are doing.” The whole half hour was listless and pointless. There was also absolutely nothing to suggest that this would change at any point.

Half-time couldn’t come quickly enough as we looked exactly like our position in the table suggested. An absolutely dreadful half of football where we showed how bad and how shot of confidence we are. Everything was dreadful and this was an insult to the idea of this being “entertainment”.

An Isaac Hayden equaliser on 65th minute brought back some hope that all was not lost. It was a brilliantly worked free-kick and highly impressive. The ball was given to Saint-Maximin on the wing who bought some time for Ritchie to cross it in, have the ball knocked down by Ciaran Clark and blasted in by Hayden. A rare example of how good this team should be.

In the 90th minute, Wilson was sent through on goal from an excellent ball from Joelinton. Sanchez took Wilson out and was then sent off. The preference in all honesty would have been Wilson to not be fouled because he was definitely going to score.

That decision earned Brighton a point too as we were unable to get a shot on target afterwards. Why didn't Shelvey shoot?!

All in all, a point was probably fair on the balance of the game but Sanchez’s blatant foul made this a case of three points lost instead of one point gained.

Eddie Howe has a hell of a job on his hands to put us on a more successful path but there is hope that things can be positively changed. If we can simply stop being so passive in matches then there is hope that we can hone the talent within the team.