Newcastle 2-3 Liverpool

&c

This bloody fixture man.

After an absolutely lionhearted performance in which we battered Liverpool for the majority of the game, 10-man Newcastle levelled from 0-2 down only to succumb to a 100th minute sucker punch from 16 year old debutant Rio Ngumoha.

With Liverpool on the ropes and Newcastle creating chance after chance, a sloppy throw in from Kieran Trippier saw Ryan Gravenberch - who had been slightly fortunate not to see a scything tackle from behind looked at by VAR - pinged one in from distance via a slight deflection from Schar.

The crowd stayed with the team as we tried to get back into it, but an appallingly stupid tackle from Gordon on van Dijk in first half stoppage time saw the Liverpool born makeshift forward sent off, VAR deciding in this case to intervene and upgrade the original yellow.

This isn't the first time Gordon has let his emotions get the better of him, to great personal and team cost, but you know what? At least he was out on the field running his bollocks off, unlike a certain sulking Swede.

Because two games in it's hard not to think that Isak's unforgivable petulance has cost us a full five points, given our dominance and the number of chances we've created.

It's no stretch to say that with a world class finisher on the pitch (or even just any striker at all) we would have beaten Villa and been out of sight after half an hour against Liverpool.

As it was, 23 seconds into the second half and Isak's would-be successor, Hugo Ekitike, rubbed salt into the wounds by doubling Liverpool's lead.

From there however, Newcastle were like a dog with a bone, hassling, harrying, Bruno with a typical 110% performance.

And it was the captain who dragged us back into it, capitalising on some inexplicable non-defending from Milos Kerkez to nod into the corner of the net.

From there it looked as though Liverpool were the team down to 10, as we battered them relentlessly.

However, by the time Osula had brilliantly poked home a Burn flick on (surely earning a start at Leeds, barring any sudden magic in the market), we had lost Joelinton and Tonali to injury and Schar to concussion, courtesy of a trademark van Dijk elbow.

Even against all these odds, we looked the more likely team until we ran out of steam about halfway through the 11 minutes added on.

Not quite sure whether to stick or twist, some poor positional play from substitute debutant Malick Thiaw saw Tino left with two men in the box, and, well, the rest is too painfully predictable to write.

So yeah, cheers Isak, bairn's crying.