Newcastle manager Bobby Robson felt that a draw was probably the right result from Saturday's entertaining clash between his side and Town. Both Robson and George Burley said they would have backed Alan Shearer above anyone else to score Newcastle's injury time penalty.

Robson said: "You would have put your mortgage on Alan scoring and he is very, very disappointed. I have told him not to worry - it happens."

The former Town boss jokingly added that he'd "lost his house" after Shearer missed the kick, awarded after Clarence Acuna appeared to be felled by a strong gust of wind.

But Town were worthy of their draw according to their ex-manager while he said Shearer had an odd match: "Alan had one of those strange games. He scored a great headed goal, had two goals disallowed - and was very unlucky for one of them - and forced their keeper into a good save in the first half. He could have had four goals.

"We had more chances than they did, and if we had taken all of ours and they had taken all of theirs, we would have won.

"But you could say they deserved a point, because they have a good passing game and they had passages of the game when they played well."

George Burley agreed with his old boss regarding Shearer's miss: "If there was one player you would chose in the whole of the Premiership you would want to take a penalty in that situation it would be Alan Shearer.

"It was a cracking game but it would have been unjust if we had lost. I thought we did well, we scored a couple of good goals but Newcastle are always dangerous.

"With two or three minutes to go and us leading 2-1 it was disappointing not to go on and get all three points, but then with the penalty we almost didn't get any."

Burley felt that the late penalty should not have been awarded, something borne out by video evidence: "I thought he just slipped. Sometimes when you come away to these big stadiums to the crowd put the referee under pressure and they react to it.

"The crowd at times is maybe worth a goal start to Newcastle."

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