It's funny the things you tell yourself to feel better after games like West Ham.
Obviously things could have been a lot worse after going 2-0 down before the first half an hour.
So it was no surprise to see, "It was a point gained in the circumstances" rolled out by many of the fans.
And although West Ham scored their first away goal for just over 15 hours a lot of people had to subscribe to this theory due to a spirited fightback.
But was this not very much a case of two points dropped?
Goals from James Milner and Nobby Solano's 52nd minute pen gave us all real reason to believe United could win with good chances not taken and Roy Carroll pulling off a couple of good saves.
After the shambles against Birmingham Toon fans were expecting a good response early on and they didn't get it.
But how about getting back to those things you say to feel better.
It would be downright silly to say something like "draw your home games and win your away games and you are sure of success."
Yet that's what we've done against West Ham and in our last two Premiership games against the Hammers and Tottenham respectively!
That's certainly Newcastle for you isn't it?
The injury crisis hasn't helped but it's about time we got used to it.
Peter Ramage hobbled off before the break with a hamstring problem while Shay Given, also subbed, is hurt with a groin problem.
No sign of any new players with NINE days left of the window open and injuries still bad is hardly encouraging.
Sounding positive is something this author has been attacked for before.
So looking at things from a worse case scenario the good thing is that United have a 10 point cushion between themselves and West Ham which would have been seven had Newcastle packed in all together.
And with 14 games left we need to sweep up around 15 points from those games to stay in the Premiership.
And if I may look at the glass from a half full point of view with 14 games left.
We need to take 28 more points from the remaining 42 to emulate last term's finish, which helped us finish 7th on 58 points.
Glenn Roeder did an amazing job to achieve that - largely helped by six wins and a draw from the last seven games.
Now as the nights begin to get lighter day by day, would it be unreasonable to ask for the same again?
Tough one given the amount of injuries, shortage of signings and in some departments a shortage of experience or confidence.
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