newcastle away. what was the score? drew 0-0 After a first 45 minutes when we played the worst we have all season, a change of formation saw more bodies in midfield and with the locals getting frustrated we slowly grew into the game and may have even have, undeservedly so, snatched it in the end.

Carson was outstanding all game as were the four in front of him. Driven on by the outstanding Young, Diawara was excellent after a nervous start and El Kak, despite some god-awful distribution also played very well. The Moroccan is so competent on the ball sometimes but his long passing is appalling. Why-oh-why do we let him take the free-kicks?

The midfield was where we were poor. There was little quality and Darren Bent can only dream of a decent pass. Reid doesn't look like he is getting any fitter and often today his play was laboured. Faye was bloody awful and I hope it was a one-off back in front of his old club. Holland was Holland and Rommedahl was, well Rommedahl. Full of north-eastern promise but just a big tease. I thought Hughes did well when he came on and gave us more aggression in the middle as did Kish.

And incidentally at half-time I thought our best player outside the back five was Marcus Bent. He seemed up for it today and worked tirelessly chasing El Kak's hopeless punts.

A good point then, and a clean sheet giving us another confidence boost and although our forward play lacked conviction it was more than made up for defensively which gives me a little warm feeling inside.

Just to finish on, how does Duff have the bollocks to say afterwards on camera that Diawara fouled him for a penalty when Diawara was quite obviously for the world to see nowhere near him. And give me Iain Dowie any time over that mind-numbingly dull Glenn Roeder. Oh, and lets be honest Scott Parker is still good, isn't he?

Dowie watch: Switched to 4-4-2 to incorporate the up for it Marcus Bent, but was quick to change it early in the 2nd half after being lucky to still be level. He would have been pleased with the way we finished the game though and a 3rd clean sheet in a week is part of the journey to improvement.
Quote: "Three clean sheets, a victory and two draws in a week is not too bad as long as we build on it next week."

Opinions from those that were there: BBC Sport; cafc.co.uk; Addicks Diary; Independent; The Sun;  ¶ 21:04