Reds feast on spineless Newcastle

IT has been anything but a predictable title race.

Yet on a sun-drenched Bank Holiday afternoon, Anfield witnessed the most inevitable outcome of the season as Newcastle, so spineless they should be reclassified as a new species of invertebrate, allowed Liverpool to retain faint hope of snaffling the title away from Manchester United.

There were other outcomes which were equally foreseeable: Newcastle failing to win for the 15th successive game here and capitulating against Liverpool for the second time this season.