Not A Glorious Newcastle Win, But A Win.

Bit of a scary start to our UEFA Cup Qualifying, as we could have gone a goal or two down early in the first half, had the Latvians actually managed to convert their relatively easy chances. But we dragged it out to half time without conceding and did have a spell of overall authority where we should have scored ourselves.

Second half it was pretty much the same, but we did manage to grab a goal. Titus Bramble - the man who scored the goal against Chelsea on the last day of the season to guarantee us European football this season - popped up to hammer a header past the Latvian 'keeper from a Duff corner. A crucial away goal coupled with a clean sheet (which is always a novelty).

More interesting for me, no Jean-Alain Boumsong or Albert Luque. Which does mean that they're not cup-tied for European competition, and could mean that they're likely to be sold in the next couple of weeks. We really could do with another striker as a matter of some urgency and ideally a world class centre-half.