Whatever Glenn Roeder said in the dressing room at half time had the desired effect, as we came out for the second half with more urgency and only five minutes in Albert Luque scored our equaliser. James Milner fed Luque who skipped past a defender and stroked a lovely left foot shot into the back of the net at the Gallowgate End. 

Hopefully a change of luck and fortunes for Luque then and given our current striker crises this is exactly what the doctor ordered. Nobody doubts the lad has shown he has talent in Lia Liga but whether Souness’ panic buy can live up to that in the much faster paced Premiership we’ll have to wait and see. One thing is for certain he owes it to himself, the fans, the manager and the chairman to show the right attitude and to start to play well in the first team.

After the equaliser we dominated possession without really threatening to score again. Only in the last few seconds did substitute Alan O’Brien almost make himself the unlikely hero but his shot went just wide of the goal and the game finished 1-1.

A disappointing result given the importance of European football for the club, however, it was always going to a tough task to play a team half way through their domestic season with no friendly matches under our belt. We now have less than seven days for the lads to get much fitter, remove the ring rustiness and become more organised.

We’ve all missed this haven’t we? Come on, it wouldn’t be Newcastle United if we did things the easy way man.