ALAN Murray last night admitted Newcastle were "leaving themselves with no toes" after their propensity for shooting themselves in the foot reappeared again at Goodison Park.

The Magpies assistant manager conducted the post-mortem into his side's 1-0 defeat at Everton because Graeme Souness was so incensed at the poor performance of both his players and referee Howard Webb.

Webb failed to award a clear-cut penalty after James McFadden blocked Shola Ameobi's shot with his arm but, with the Magpies having slipped to their sixth defeat of the season, Murray kept his criticism closer to home.

A promising first half counted for nothing when Joseph Yobo headed home Mikel Arteta's corner in the opening minute of the second half, and the visitors failed to create a single chance of note as Everton coasted to the final whistle.

"We go in at half-time and tell them what we want to do in terms of keeping Everton at bay and improving the way we are playing," said Murray.

"Then, bingo, after 45 seconds, we're 1-0 down. If you're talking about shooting yourself in the foot, we've got no toes left.

"It can't carry on. If we continue to do that, we can't expect to win games. You can't give teams encouragement and hand them a one-goal start, but that's exactly what we did."

Everton could have been a goal behind at that stage had Webb seen McFadden's offence in the closing stages of the first half.

The Scotland international clearly used his arm to deflect the ball behind and, with the Magpies also having been denied an obvious penalty at Chelsea last week, the fates seem to be conspiring against Souness' side.

"I've had a chat with the television guys and they say it was a stonewall penalty," said Murray. "I haven't seen it myself, but they are the sort of decisions we haven't been getting.

"Things like that change games. With the problems Everton have been having, going 1-0 down would have left them in a difficult situation to get out of. They would have been deflated, we would have been given a lift, and it would have been a different ball game entirely.

"We should have gone in 1-0 up at least, but we don't think we played particularly well, especially in the second half.

"Graeme feels it. He's very disappointed, as we all are. We're pleased we've got a game on Wednesday so we can start putting things right."

That game comes at Wigan and, despite his absence yesterday, Newcastle should be able to field Michael Owen as they look to reach the quarter-finals of the Carling Cup.

"We're very hopeful that Michael will be okay," said Murray. "He wasn't a kick in the backside away from being fit enough to face Everton. He could do everything apart from striking a ball flat out.

"He felt it when he did that, and we're just being very careful because we don't want to lose him for an extended period of time."

They will almost certainly be without Celestine Babayaro, though, after the full-back suffered a groin strain in the second half of yesterday's game. With Robbie Elliott representing Newcastle's only left-back cover, a lengthy lay-off would be a matter of serious concern.

Babayaro should have been taken out of the equation yesterday after an impromptu bout of boxing with volatile Australian Tim Cahill.

The pair traded blows on the edge of the area, but Everton boss David Moyes felt Webb was right to keep his red card in his pocket.

"I think they were both at it a bit," he said. "Players get very tight to each other these days and, after he (Babayaro) backed into Tim, they both had a bit of a go. But I don't think it was enough to warrant either a booking or a sending off to either of them."

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