Victor Wanyama hammered another nail into Newcastle’s Championship coffin with the third goal in Southampton’s 3-1 win over Newcastle.
With Sunderland and Norwich both losing it was a wasted weekend for Rafa Benitez’s side as the clock ticks down towards relegation.
Newcastle have won just six out of 32 matches so far and trail fourth bottom Norwich by six points with the Canaries getting the ideal chance to almost secure their place when they host Sunderland on Saturday.
With former Celts Fraser Forster and Virgil van Dijk in the side Wanyama put Southampton three up in the 55th minute with Andros Townsend’s goal in the 65th minute providing no consolation for the visitors to St Mary’s.
After the match win-less Benitez said: “To be fair, the last three games have been the same. I’ve been saying the same thing. Second half we did much better but I’m really disappointed with the first half. Everyone needs to know that we have a lot of people behind us and so we need to give everything.
“Normally when you are in the position we are in, when you start the game conceding a goal, it’s not the best.
“We have to show more character like we did in the second half. We have four more games at home and we will need everyone’s support there. In the second half, the team showed we had character.
“It important that everybody continues to believe. The anxiety is killing us sometimes. If we can control these things then things will change.”
On Saturday Newcastle are at home to Swansea who beat Chelsea 1-0 at home at the weekend.