ROBSON'S REACTION

Goals from Andy O'Brien, Gary Speed and a spectacular effort from Laurent Robert saw Newcastle easy through the tie, but the Magpies' appeared to relax and allowed Fulham's Sean Davis to get a goal back with 16 minutes left on the clock.

"I would have settled for 3-1 before the match, obviously," he said. "We did well up to a point.

"We put a hard shift in, our set-play routines were terrific - great service, great quality of balls into the box, they couldn't handle us in the air. We scored two and could have had two more really on set-play routines.

"They played nice football, but in front of our defence. The third goal was important, a spectacular acrobat's goal, and it looked like an unassailable lead at that stage.

"And then we went flat, just didn't turn on the ball and look forward, just played square passes, back-passes, thinking about keeping possession, we have done all the work and don't need to turn them any more.

"Because of that, they intercepted it, worked hard in midfield and then came flooding at us with players, just through our negative play, basically, thinking the game was over.

"During that time, they got that goal which just put a little bit of tension in the match. I was going to take Alan Shearer and Gary Speed off at 3-0 with about 20 minutes to go because I thought we would save it, thinking about Saturday at Liverpool - the goal came, 3-1, but we saw it all out. We did all right."

What Do You Think? Leave A Message On Our Forum! (HERE)