Cardiff City 0-0 Newcastle United - Absolutely dire

Newcastle had the first real attempt of note when Kenedy was able to manoeuvre the ball onto his right foot, but the Brazilian fired a tame shot at goalkeeper Neil Etheridge.

The home side then went close to opening the scoring. Sol Bamba rose highest to meet a Joe Ralls corner, but his goal-bound header was stopped in its tracks by Ayoze Perez.

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The Spaniard almost proved efficient at the other end of the pitch. He bustled his way into the Cardiff box, although Etheridge did well to provide the stop.

Perez was probably Newcastle’s most dangerous attacker, and when he was picked out by a beautiful Jonjo Shelvey pass, he directed his volley towards goal, only to be denied again by the Cardiff goalkeeper.

Cardiff come out for the second half and were much better than Newcastle. Kenneth Zohore had some very good chances, the first coming when he was picked out by Ralls, but his header was very poor.

The Danish striker again found himself free in the area, but Jamaal Lascelles did just enough to put him off, which resulted in another poor finish.

With Javier Manquillo being forced off at the interval, Rafa Benitez decided to introduce wantaway Isaac Hayden to slot in at right-back.....and he lasted 22 minutes. An idiotic and quite frankly, disgraceful challenge on Josh Murphy resulted in him being given a straight red card.

Cardiff huffed and puffed after that, but never really looked like scoring. Again Zohore was at fault for wasting a chance at the back post.

Newcastle actually seemed to grow in confidence towards the end of the game. They won a free kick on the edge of the box when Mo Diame was brought down by Harry Arter, but Kenedy, who may face retrospective action after a kick-out in the first half, totally wasted the chance.

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The Brazilian had a huge chance to make amends for his dreadful performance at the death, when referee Craig Pawson awarded the Magpies a penalty for a handball by Sean Morrison. Unfortunately, his penalty was awful and was comfortably saved by Etheridge, his second penalty save in successive weeks. That pretty much summed up the game.