NEWCASTLE UNITED arrive at the half-way point of their season sitting top of the Championship table.

But a disappointing Boxing Day defeat to a determined Sheffield Wednesday side dampened the festive spirit around St James’ Park.

And Rafa Benitez was quick to point out that his pre-match warnings against complacency or over-confidence were well-founded.

“I think I was proved right, when I said before the match that this would be a tough game for us,” he said.

“I said we were up against a good team, and we have seen that.

“We have seen that a team with experience of this league - good players, well-organised - they can be a threat.

“And because we didn’t take our chances early on in the game and we allowed them to create chances on counter-attacks, they gave us problems.”

Midfield general Jonjo Shelvey was missed as he began the first of a five-game ban.

But Benitez said a failure to deal with Wednesday’s counter-attacking style was more the issue in a festive fixture which saw United present too many gifts to the opposition.

“How much was Shelvey missed?” he mused. “You never know.

“He is a good player but we have enough quality on the pitch to win games without him and we need to do that.

“For me, we should never have allowed them as many counter-attacks in which to score in the game.

“We shouldn’t have allowed them three or four counter-attacks in the way we did.”

Benitez identified as a concern a feeling that after winning 11 of their previous 13 games, United’s players are beginning to feel as though it is all or nothing in games - that all-out attack becomes their mentality, instead of a more pragmatic approach when the occasion calls for it.

“We have to learn how to draw sometimes and maybe if we learn that we can have a better second half of the season,” he explained.

“Instead of just thinking that we have to win every game, we have to learn that sometimes you cannot.

“We need to understand that when we don’t win, sometimes it is okay to draw.

“How do we teach them that? By talking to them, by working with them in training and by maybe developing their experience.

“We needed to score in this game and when it didn’t happen, we got a bit anxious and then started to give them too much space to create counter-attacks, so again I would say that these are the games you have to learn to manage because we are losing games that we sometimes might draw, or win.”

Nothing should take away from the fact that United are still having a fantastic season thus far.

But the Wednesday defeat has given pause for thought and for the always-focused Benitez, there was the slightly veiled threat that his players may risk complacency but he certainly won’t, as he makes his plans for the visit of Nottingham Forest to St James’ this Friday.

“That is now four defeats at home this season, and that  is not ideal for us,” he observed. “We know that we have to be better.

“Thankfully, we have another game coming up very soon and it is an opportunity to change things when things are going wrong.”