Man City 2-1 Newcastle

&c

Newcastle came away from the Etihad with a very promising performance, a goal, two more refereeing controversies and no points on Saturday night.

And given our record there, that's about the best we can hope for at this godforsaken ground.

The performance was strong enough - we were arguably the better side across the whole game - that this can hopefully be taken in our stride without damaging our much improved momentum too much.

And indeed it could have been better still - with the score at 2-1, a Lewis Hall goal sandwiched by two Nico O'Reilly strikes, Dan Burn nodded home a great Tonali cross.

It was ruled out for what looked like a fairly straightforward offside, but upon further inspection, Burn was deliberately pushed offside by Dias just before the kick was taken.

This was cleared and according to the referees on the night, perfectly within the law.

Naturally the TNT commentators, who all seems to take giddy glee in things going against us, gushed about the cleverness of the defender.

And in the second half, just after being booked, Bernardo Silva clattered into Burn with no eyes for the ball - literally just ran, jumped and barged into him - and received no second yellow.

Yet again, this decision was widely panned as incorrect after the game, which does us precisely no good whatsoever.

And so, despite some promising moments, the game ended in something approaching glorious failure.

With league games running out, maybe our best route into Europe next season is actually winning the Champions League (he half joked).

Showing on Tuesday that we're capable of holding onto a five goal lead at home to European minnows would be a good start.