Newcastle went out of the UEFA cup last night, losing to Marseille. 2 - 0 away. Newcastle only needed an away goal to go through, so ascore draw would have been enough. But they slipped up after a free kick was defended and Marseille raced down the other end and scored. Laurent Robert took the kick and for once instead of shooting laid the ball wide to the left back Olivier Bernard. He got a good cross in, but Marseille broke and the rest is history.

Later Marseille got another goal from a dodgy free kick and the it was really game over. Before the kick came in and Didier Drogba (who scored the first) could be seen talking to two team mates, presumably on his instructions they both broke forward, sucked in the defense and Drogba was left unmarked to slot in his second. Givens nearly stopped it.

Didier Drogba was excellent, ran well had good physicality and Marseille didn't cheat much for a European side. (Sorry if that sounds racist but most European players will writhe around with suspected broken legs after the meekest of challenges).

Steve Marlet, who is still technically a Fulham player on loan, seems to work so much harder there than he did for Fulham. There he looks like he's worth a good few million, still way short of the 12.5 Fulham apparently paid at the hight of the transfer boom.

Newcastle should have had a penalty after a handball, but it was a fair result really and yo could see how much they really missed their injured players - Bellamy, Dyer, Woodgate, Jenas...

BBC SPORT | Football | Other European | Newcastle's Euro dream over