Newcastle United were once again, found wanting in front of goal as they face Plymouth in the third round of the F.A Cup. Boss Chris Hughton decided to use the full squad with players such as Krul, Kadar, and Nile Ranger getting first team run-outs.

The Toon Army, who descended on the South Coast in their thousands, could be forgiven for wondering why Newcastle weren’t taking the F.A Cup seriously. The likes of Man United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool have such large squads that they can afford to rotate players. Clearly, this is a signal of intent by NUFC that the league is their priority, but the question has to be asked, would you rather take a lesser squad with the chance of a replay, or take your first team squad and win the game at the first time of asking?

The pitch at Home Park was hardly one that allowed free-flowing football, but Fabrice Pancrate, who could have had a hat-trick, could hardly blame the surface of the field for being so wasteful. Hopefully the Frenchman’s stunning finish at St. James’s Park a few weeks ago wasn’t a fluke.

With Newcastle building momentum, Nicky Butt had a delicate chip tipped onto the bar by the Plymouth Keeper. Lovenkrands and Gutierrez were brought on to replace Pancrate and Alan Smith, but the goal Newcastle were threatening to score never came.

So, we have to play one more game that we could have done without, but we’re in the hat for the fourth round of the F.A Cup.

Goals from Lovenkrands and Fabrice Pancrate were enough to send Newcastle United four points clear of second placed West Brom. Even though Kevin Nolan received his marching orders for a second bookable offence, the Toon now extend their unbeaten to eleven games (in all competitions).

When Newcastle were relegated, many pundits and fans of opposing clubs warned us that the Coca Cola Championship would be a difficult league to get out of. Well, I’m sorry to say that this league is becoming a bit of a cakewalk. It’s definitely not the huge physical scrap we’d thought it be, and we can undo many of the teams we play because of the quality we have. Make no mistake, we deserved to be relegated but quite clearly the players that we have are a step above other Championship players.

On-loan signing Marlon Harewood retained his spot in the starting lineup and managed to play his part in the Toon’s opening goal. Harewood chased down a backpass played by Craig Cathcart to his goalkeeper and played the ball across to Peter Lovenkrands who just had to slot it into an empty net.

Kevin Nolan’s harsh sending off reduced Newcastle to 10 men and Watford managed to put some pressure on the Toon’s backline. However, Watford didn’t make their pressure count as they lacked the extra quality to open Newcastle up. On came Nicky Butt to aid in defence and Fabrice Pancrate made an appearance in the 83rd minute. The Frenchman’s impact was almost instantaneous after holding the ball up in the box, managed to turn two Watford defenders and fire in an unstoppable shot past Scott Loach. Fabrice Pancrate’s goal was Newcastle’s second and finally made sure that Newcastle  held onto the victory.

Even though it’s great to be sitting here talking about the goals we’ve scored, we have to give credit where credit’s due. That’s another clean sheet for us with a total of 11 all season, and the Newcastle United defence can all be proud of the work they’ve put in over the past few months (I never thought I’d be saying that!). The record speaks for itself, the Toon have the best defensive record in the league.

Another three points, another home victory and we’re certainly in good form right now. It’s going to be difficult to see us not winning the Championship. We’re 10 points clear of third place and looking good to go straight back up to the Premier League at the first time of asking.

Update: The official site now confirms that Pancrate has signed a deal that will see him spend the rest of the season at Newcastle with an option to extend.

When Barry Moat‘s Newcastle United takeover bid failed, a lot of supporters feared that without money to invest in players, we’d struggle to add to our already depleted squad. The current Newcastle squad is probably just good enough to get out of the Championship, but without further investment, it’s looking bleak for our future Premier League survival.

One thing that we’ve lacked this season is pace. Only Lovenkrands possesses any kind of natural speed, and in games where other teams shut up shop, a burst of speed can often make the difference. Fortunately, a French bloke called Fabrice Pancrate looks like he’s got bags of pace, which Chris Hughton has certainly picked up on during training and Pancrate’s debut against Hartlepool reserves earlier in the week.

Hopefully this deal can go through, and Hughton has gone on record saying he’d make a decision by the end of this week, so it looks like we’ll find out soon enough.