Fulham Demolish Newcastle United: 3 Things to Take from the Game

What we witnessed today at Craven Cottage was somewhat of a collapse by Newcastle United.

Giving up five second-half goals (including a Clint Dempsey hat trick), Newcastle showed that they have quite a few problems moving forward.

Here, I have compiled the three main points to take from the game for Newcastle:

A New Defender Is Needed

Whenever a team concedes five goals in just 45 minutes, you can bet that the defence had a bad performance.

This game was no exception.

With Steven Taylor out for the rest of the season, the defence—only a few weeks ago the best in the league—has been questionable. A lot of chopping and changing has been going on, with Ryan Taylor moving into midfield (and then completely out of the team) and Davide Santon joining the fray.

What Newcastle need now is a consistent back four, likely with an additional player to come in and play centre back in place of Mike Williamson.

Some names that have been mentioned so far are Aly Cissokho and James Tomkins, both of whom could fit right into this team and plug the holes that were opened up against Fulham.

The African Cup of Nations Can't End Sooner

Right now, Newcastle have arguably their three best players in Africa, playing for their respective nations as we speak.

Newcastle are missing their main goal scorer in Demba Ba, with Shola Ameobi and Leon Best getting nowhere near scoring on Sunday.

Guthrie has done a good job covering for Tiote, which I will get to later, but Newcastle won't be able to survive without Ba and Cisse.

Goals will be scarce going forward and, for the time being, all Newcastle can do is aim to score more goals from midfield and hope that Senegal and the Ivory Coast get knocked out in the group stages. 

Danny Guthrie Is a Good Fill-in for Cheik Tiote

Danny Guthrie's performance in these last two games have been something of a revelation.

Guthrie was named man of the match against QPR and followed this up with a screamer of a goal against Fulham.

His performance was certainly a bright spot for Newcastle, with his penetrating runs from midfield and fantastic passing, not to mention his threat of scoring from seemingly anywhere.

Guthrie could be the most important player whilst Tiote is out and he'll need to continue performing well if Newcastle are going to win in the future.