Middlesbrough 1 Newcastle Utd 0: A stop-start derby ended with one man, Yakubu Aiyegbeni, using his head to win the points for Middlesbrough and an element of the travelling Newcastle United support calling for the head of their chairman Freddy Shepherd.
The climate is warming on Teesside after two successive wins but it is shaping up to be a long, cold winter on Tyneside. Disaffected Geordies will hope the latest takeover rumour - involving a local consortium - has some basis in fact.
Newcastle's dejection at the end was sizeable, partly because they performed well in patches and at times defended with resolution. Boro's manager, Gareth Southgate, delivered an honest assessment when he said: "It's the first time we've got a bit more than we have deserved, it could have been a draw."
This was a sixth defeat in nine matches - one point taken from the last 15 - and that represents their second-worst start to a Premiership season. The other did for Ruud Gullit.
Having gone into battle to appoint Glen Roeder, and having sanctioned the former West Ham manager's recruitment of Nigel Pearson as his new assistant in place of the sacked Kevin Bond, the chairman is unlikely to take an axe to his manager.
But there is no disguising the fans' rising impatience with the hierarchy. These were the first anti-Shepherd chants for 18 months from a fan-base slow to show militancy. Newcastle's next two league games are against Charlton and Sheffield United at home and if six points are not garnered then calls for Shepherd's head will surely be heard again. Before then it is Portsmouth at St James' Park on Wednesday in the League Cup, which always appeared tricky.
The inability to defend durably and consistently has been Newcastle's problem for as long as anyone can remember, and when the lively Stewart Downing swung in an 85th-minute corner Aiyegbeni had Stephen Carr and Craig Moore for company.
A standing joke at Boro is that Aiyegbeni does not even pretend to head the ball in training. And yet all he had to do here was jump ever so slightly to direct a downward header past Steve Harper and Scott Parker on the goalline.
Aiyegbeni's intervention - his third goal in as many matches - proved to be the difference. However, it is easy to isolate Newcastle's defence. Had Obafemi Martins or Antoine Sibierski, Newcastle's starting strikers, showed comparable efficiency with Aiyegbeni Boro would have been two down after 14 minutes.
"It was a game undoubtedly we should have won," Roeder said.
Yet when Damien Duff teed up Sibierski after seven minutes the day looked different. Unfortunately for Newcastle, although Sibierski shares Alan Shearer's initials, that is where the similarity ends. Sibierski's shot was pitifully weak, and the Frenchman was then given credit for the pass to Martins when it was a poor mistake by Jonathan Woodgate that let the former Internazionale player in. The Nigerian striker had only a sliding Mark Schwarzer to beat and did so, but his chip hit the bar and bounced over.
At that stage Middlesbrough were having difficulty getting out of their own half. But then Downing and Aiyegbeni began to get the ball, Harper made saves from the left-winger and Jason Euell, and five minutes after half-time the Newcastle goalkeeper tipped a Downing free-kick on to the woodwork.
As the play opened up James Milner had an opportunity created by Parker but it was Middlesbrough who finished the stronger. Euell wasted one opening and Steven Taylor cleared an 80th-minute shot off the line from the substitute Fabio Rochemback.
Five minutes later, though, Newcastle had no defence. Then came the chants.
- Guardian Service
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)