Points haul masks poor displays

THERE’S nowhere better to go than the North-East when we’ve had a bit of trouble his season, it would seem. After the Christmas party scandal, a dreadful Sunderland compliantly rolled over to help us cover the wounds; now, after the alarmingly poor show and lucky escape in Lyon, wretched Newcastle duly played the patsy.

Not that we’re complaining, of course. Anyone who remembers the hairy battles up at St James during Messiah Kevin’s First Coming in the mid-Nineties will have been savouring their Saturday night dinner more than usual — and I can’t remember the last time we put 11 goals past one opponent in a league season. Training ground exercise much of it might have been, but Rooney’s clincher truly was worth the ticket price, and credit too — for the second week running, gasp! – to Carrick for his slide-rule passing.

Nonetheless, that mention of the Christmas party brings to mind a current belief among some that surface-glitter results, such as the last two Saturdays, have masked a decline in our overall performance since that morale-sapping, unfestive week.