Robson: Leeds can stay up

Newcastle boss Bobby Robson has tipped crisis club Leeds to win their fight against relegation after seeing his side push them deeper into trouble.

The 20th Barclaycard Premiership goal of Alan Shearer’s career against the Yorkshire club was all that separated the two sides after a game which the home side should have killed off long before the break but were left having to close out in nervous style as the clock ran down.

United’s failure to make the most of their first-half dominance did not eventually cost them, although the character the visitors showed to mount a second-half fight-back, Robson believes, will serve them well in the months ahead.

“The chances we have created, we have not taken, and suddenly it is a different story,” he said. “They are bound to come into it. They had a sniff of a result and that just kept them working, kept them going.

“I thought they did very well. On that performance, I think they should not go down.”

Kieron Dyer followed up his match-winning performance at Southampton at the weekend with another dazzling first-half display – “If he was a horse, I would ride him,” Robson later joked – and he might have claimed a hat-trick before the break.

Shearer also passed up a glorious opportunity, and after Leeds keeper Paul Robinson escaped punishment for an untidy challenge on Dyer which might have cost him a red card, Leeds started to fight back.

Much-criticised striker Mark Viduka led the charge with a robust display which always kept former team-mate Jonathan Woodgate and Titus Bramble on their toes throughout.

“We told the two centre-halves that is how they had to play this game, ‘You have got to clinically batter Viduka’,” said Robson. “That is what we did and they both had fine matches.

“He played very well, I thought, Viduka. When he gets the ball to feet and rolls you and turns you in the box, he is always dangerous, and we managed to kind of sedate him in much of his play, but he is still a fair player.

“We had a good performance from Woodgate, two fine performances from the two midfield players. I thought Alan (Shearer) was a role model for everybody in terms of wanting to win a match when it turned out to be a scrappy game from being quite cohesive and fluent in the first half.

“We were not always in control of the second half as we were in the first half. They were bound to come into it as they do – that is the way it happens in football. It was a big victory for us.”

Leeds boss Eddie Gray was delighted with Viduka’s display, and the resolve his side showed to mount their late bid for a point after a poor start.

“Mark Viduka will give anybody a good battle,” he said. “Mark Viduka is a good player.

“I felt that was the problem for us at half-time, we were not getting enough support up to him and there were still a lot of balls that were coming off the central defenders and Mark Viduka that our midfield players could have been on to a little bit quicker, I felt, but it happened a little bit more for us in the second half.”