West Brom vs Newcastle match report: Karl Darlow howler allows late Darren Fletcher winner

West Brom 1 Newcastle 0: The Magpies goalkeeper was making his debut

Darren Fletcher heads West Brom ahead (GETTY IMAGES)

Few will be ringing out the old year with the fervour of Newcastle United but they will not be looking forward to the new one with any enthusiasm. In 2015, Newcastle have played 38 Premier League matches. They’ve won seven, lost 22 and collected just 30 points. This is relegation form and although this latest loss leaves them only two points adrift, unless there is a significant upturn they will end up in the Championship next season.

They were markedly inferior yesterday to a West Brom side struggling for form and goals themselves and, after succumbing to Darren Fletcher’s header, were met at the final whistle with verbal abuse raining down on them from their own supporters.

This was not entirely deserved, for the most part it was incompetence rather than lack of effort that undermined Newcastle, but after Fletcher finally broke the deadlock they offered little. Next up are Arsenal and Manchester United.

Head coach Steve McClaren railed at Mike Jones for denying Alexsander Mitrovic a “blatant penalty” with the game goalless but the incident (a tug in the box) did not look clear-cut. He also blamed Karl Darlow, on his Premier League debut, for allowing Fletcher’s header to squirm under his body, but could just have easily scapegoated the midfielders who failed to stop Claudio Yacob’s cross and the defenders who gave Fletcher a free header. Or the owner who underfunds the team, or the coaching staff who set them up.

Darlow, thrust into the fray 30 minutes before kick-off after Rob Elliot failed to overcome a stomach bug, had a poor game, but Newcastle’s hapless defence would reduce Petr Cech to a bag of nerves. If Albion had had a natural goalscorer on the pitch they would have won comfortably.

Actually, they did, for the last 20 minutes. That was how long Saido Berahino was given to make amends for provoking a pre-match outburst from Tony Pulis. The striker, one of the most natural finishers in the league, was “lucky” even to be on the bench, said the Albion boss, alluding darkly to what he had “seen” in the week.

Pulis was equally opaque afterwards as to Berahino’s actual offence, but made clear he had transgressed the “team-comes-first” code. “Sometimes supporters do not realise what goes on behind the scenes,” said Pulis. “I have always been a manager who wants his team to be a team, everybody together. Sometimes Saido does things that break away from that. He’s been told.”

Pulis added: “For five months he has not prepared himself, got himself ready to play.” This is a damning criticism, but Pulis stressed Berahino showed a “fantastic reaction” when he came on and “worked his socks off”.

He was also involved in the goal, feeding Stéphane Sessègnon, who drew three defenders as he attacked the box before laying the ball back for Yacob to pick out Fletcher’s untracked run. Darlow, said McClaren, “will be disappointed with the goal, but in general he did the job”. Indeed, he went on to make two fine saves to deny Victor Anichebe and Berahino.

Signed in August 2014, Darlow is no novice. He has played more than a century of Championship matches for Nottingham Forest but The Hawthorns, with a swirling wind and many a cross sent into the box, was a daunting place to make his Premier League debut.

Prior to the goal, both sides hit the bar from corners: Paul Dummett after 54 minutes, with Fabricio Coloccini hitting the post in the subsequent scramble, and Anichebe. It seemed at this point a goal would never come. In a lively opening, Coloccini had cleared off the line from James Morrison, who was then denied by Darlow. At the other end, Gareth McAuley dispossessed Moussa Sissoko at the last and Boaz Myhill parried a Georginio Wijnaldum drive.

Albion had taken three points from the previous 15 and home anxiety grew as the game stayed goalless. Then Fletcher delivered and it was the Newcastle fans left feeling angry and fearful.