A LATE equaliser from Peter Crouch left John Carver fuming that Newcastle United had lost their ‘professionalism’ after missing out on a golden chance to claim back-to-back Premier League wins for the first time under him.

The Magpies had one foot in the top ten after Jack Colback’s 74th minute opener had given them the lead after a pretty uneventful Sunday afternoon outing against Stoke City.

But Newcastle were left disappointed when Crouch towered above Daryl Janmaat at the back post to level things up in stoppage-time.

Carver was annoyed that substitute Mehdi Abeid, asked to sit deep to shore things up in midfield, had gone walkabout among other things. Abeid’s movement allowed Steven Nzonzi the freedom to pick out Geoff Cameron on the right in the build up to the late goal.

Newcastle should have had the game wrapped up by then. Moments before that there had been great opportunities created for Gabriel Obertan and Ayoze Perez to add a second.

“That's not professionalism for me there's two minutes left and we should run the clock down and take a scrappy 1-0 win,” said Carver, also not happy with Remy Cabella’s reaction after being substituted midway through the second half.

“We had a great chance when we were three-on-two at their end but Gabby just chose the wrong options. Ayoze hit a chance over and they normally fly in.

“Does it tell on my face? It's hugely frustrating. It wasn't a classic, was it? Certainly one game that's not going in my DVD collection but when you get yourselves in front with a good goal you have to stay ahead.

“I had to change it because I thought we were running out of steam so thankfully it was Gabby who set up the goal. I'd said to Jack you have to be scoring more goals and he's got another one.”

Stoke boss Mark Hughes, sent to the St James’ Park stands last year when his side lost 5-1 and had two men sent off, felt Colback should not have even been on the pitch to put Newcastle ahead.

Having been cautioned for a foul on Marc Muniesa shortly after half-time, the former Sunderland midfielder then left his foot in on Victor Moses three minutes before his goal. Even Colback said: “If I had seen a second yellow I couldn’t have felt too aggrieved. I caught him, but you ride your luck sometimes.”

And Hughes added: “The disappointment is that the ref wasn't brave enough to make the right decisions at a key moment. Given the yellows that were dished out to both sides the nature of those offences, for him not to give a second yellow to Colback ...

“We don't want players sent off but the referee needs to be stronger there and he wasn't. The lad was allowed to stay on and he goes and scores the goal that meant we might not have taken anything. If he'd been stronger they'd have been down to ten men and we would have won the game.”

Carver disagreed and does not want his locally-born midfielder to change. He said: “Jack's a very competitive player and we're not going to take that out of him.

“The referee handled it well. It’s a competitive game and you can't tell me (Glenn) Whelan, (Phil) Bardsley and (Steven) Nzonzi are not competitive. I didn't think it was a second yellow.”

The Newcastle boss, whose side travel to face Alan Pardew’s in-form Crystal Palace on Wednesday, was more opinionated about the overall result in his bid to get the club in to the top half of the Premier League, where owner Mike Ashley wants them to finish.

"We knew if we could get the three points we'd get above Stoke,” said Carver, who failed to lead Newcastle to a seventh straight win over Stoke at St James’.

“It's not the league position that frustrates me it's the manner of the goal we've conceded. The lads have got to realise you've got to go to the last minute and we didn't. It’s my job to make sure that we do.

“Whatever it takes to win a game, that’s what you have to do. They're not always going to be entertaining games. You win 1-0 everyone's happy. We have to be more creative but that's not just going to happen all of a sudden.”