Fulham	0 - 1	Newcastle
	Half Time ( 0 - 0 )	Scorers Barton (pen) 90  Booked Emre 79

Before today’s game Newcastle have not kept a clean sheet on their league travels for over 13 months. That finally changed, Newcastle won 1-0 thanks to an injury-time penalty from hard working midfielder Joey Barton.

Forward Alan Smith was brought down in the Fulham box by Elliot Omozusi. Joey Barton was calm and collected and found the back of the net for his first goal for Newcastle.

The game as a whole was woeful and lacked any quality and neither team managed to create many clear cut chances. Newcastle just about deserved to come away with all 3 points.
Habib Beye directed a header inches wide of the target for Newcastle and David Healy came close to finding the back of the net on 2 different occasions just before Joey Barton slotted home the spot-kick.

The final result was unlucky for Fulham who now find themselves in the Premier League’s bottom 3. Fulham were willing to defend for the whole game and created very few chances.

Newcastle started bright enough and was beginning to show signs they were playing as a unit. Very early on Charles N’Zogbia started an attack from the left-back position which resulted in a corner. The resulting corner found Beye in the area who missed the target by inches. Then David Healy started to test Shay Given with a cheeky chip from the edge of the box, but Given was not fooled by the shot.

Newcastle came close again from a James Milner cross to find Barton at the back post but Niemi made a good save. The rest of the first-half was a dull affair which created no real chances as both teams failed to pass the ball to someone on their own team. There was hardly any booing at half-time, largely due to the fact most of the spectators were bored and were not interested in the game at all.

When the teams came back for the second-half, Fulham tried to exert some energy into the game. Hameur Bouazza sent in a dangerous cross which was cleared. Healy then shot from 20 yards to bring a good save from Given. Emre came on and created a chance soon after for Newcastle. Emre crossed his free-kick into the area but a bad header from Nicky Butt was not good enough to cause any real problems for Fulham’s Goal Keeper.

The game lacked consistency from both sides, any long ball’s resulted in 5 or 6 players challenging for the ball which resulted in very sloppy play from both teams. Unfortunately for Omozusi on his 19th birthday he fouled Alan Smith late on in the area. Joey Barton duly stepped up and slotted home from the spot to give the Magpies all 3 points.

Fulham have now suffered three successive losses for the first time in 20 outings this season.

Fulham: Fulham: Niemi, Omozusi, Hughes, Stefanovic, Bocanegra, Davies, Murphy, Davis (Kuqi 75), Bouazza, Healy, Dempsey.

Subs Not Used: Warner, Ki-Hyeon, Smertin, Baird.

Newcastle: Newcastle: Given, N'Zogbia, Rozehnal, Cacapa, Beye, Geremi (Emre 59), Butt, Barton, Milner, Smith, Martins (Viduka 77).

Subs Not Used: Harper, Jose Enrique, Edgar.

Att: 24,959.

Ref: Howard Webb (S Yorkshire).

By Ronan McKitterick