The damage is Dunn

Another embarrassing home defeat on Saturday, this time to Birmingham, and afterwards Alan Shearer wasn't pulling any punches: "We're not getting in behind and stretching teams, we're not creating chances, the simple fact is that we aren't playing well. We're not doing an awful lot right as a team. It's been a rotten week, we haven't played well and we have to be man enough to say it."

Despite the fact that Sir Bobby rang the changes since our last Premiership disappointment - Speed dropping back to left back allowing Jenas to play through the middle, Solano and Viana in for Bowyer and Robert on the flanks - our performance was still woefully inadequate. The midfield in particular looks utterly stagnant at the moment, and none of the players who have come in have done anything to suggest they merit an extended run in the side. We can't expect to rely on Shearer when he's given no service whatsoever, and neither can we expect Given to perform miracles week in week out. Birmingham have a few decent players, most notably mulleted matchwinner David Dunn, but they're precisely the sort of opposition we should be sweeping aside at St James'.

The only thing more galling than the result and the predicament in which it leaves us was Steve Bruce's continual attempts to proclaim himself to be a Geordie. What a cock.

Our catastrophic week inevitably makes me wonder about the prudence of not adding to the squad when all those around us were. When a side like Middlesbrough can go out and land players of the calibre of Mendieta, Zenden and Mills (albeit on loan deals), it puzzles me why we haven't pursued potential new faces rather more thoroughly.

When all's said and done, though, you don't become a bad side overnight. Let's just hope that the two week break for the European Championship qualifying matches gives the players a chance to clear their heads, rediscover some form and get back to basics - like stringing passes together, creating chances and scoring goals.