Nottingham Forest 1-1 Newcastle

&c

Newcastle's season was finally written off at the City Ground on Sunday, as we played fairly well, took the lead with a good goal after two proactive subs combined, then failed to match the desire of Elliot Anderson who barged through our defence to score an 88th minute equaliser.

Not quite Graham Fenton, but it just had to be Anderson who scored.

That followed a pretty good performance, in which we played a genuine 4-2-3-1 with Woltemade behind Osula, and the big German looked decent, notably playing in Osula for one good chance that he took too long over.

Countering this long-called-for change, however, was the strange decision to play Hall at right back, with Burn on the left and Trippier on the bench.

It didn't really pay off, and Hall was culpable for the equaliser (as was Bruno who was completely out of puff and didn't track Anderson) as he let the Geordie Maradona power the ball through him.

By this point Hall should probably have been brought off anyway, hurting himself in a tackle.

The first half was a pretty turgid affair, though Pope made a few good saves, but we were the better side second half.

And when Ramsey and Barnes came on, they soon combined for a well taken goal, Ramsey playing a perfect first-time ball into the path of Barnes through the centre, who had the composure to finish in a way you feel Gordon never really would.

At this point we were looking comfortable, above the mackems in the table, and that was about as good as things were going to get.

However, this is Newcastle in 2025/26, and we dropped our 27th point from winning positions in the league this season, the most of any team.

Contrast that to last season where our total was seven, the lowest in the league.

So with nothing left to play for but pride, it looks as though we've been deprived either Arsenal bottling the title or Spurs going down.

Feels like we've reverted to type where we can't have nice things.