WITH Joey Barton's transfer request having caused considerable consternation in the blue half of Manchester, Newcastle experienced a unique reversal of fortunes ahead of last night's game at the City of Manchester Stadium. For once, they were taking on a club in a greater state of crisis than themselves.

By the end of a thoroughly dispiriting 90 minutes, though, normal service had been resumed. While Manchester City will spend the rest of the season attempting to negotiate an agreement with their unsettled midfielder, the Magpies will be battling for their Premiership lives. While Barton seeks to avoid a drop in his wage demands, Newcastle will be happy to avoid the drop.

On the evidence of last night's abject surrender, relegation is hardly out of the question for a side that began the campaign with realistic hopes of the Champions League.

While the FA Cup continues to offer Graeme Souness a lifeline, the Magpies boss will not keep his job unless things start to improve in the league. The relegation places are just six points away and, with Portsmouth visiting Tyneside this weekend, Saturday's game is the latest in a seemingly endless list of must-win matches for the manager.

The only consolation is that his side can hardly perform more poorly than they did last night. Defensively, the Magpies were all at sea yet again as Albert Riera and Andy Cole effectively put the game out of reach before the interval and, in attack, an isolated Alan Shearer never looked like breaking Jackie Milburn's scoring record.

By the time Darius Vassell trebled City's advantage midway through the second half, City's problems were forgotten and Newcastle's were clear for all to see. In every aspect of the game, the visitors were inferior to their hosts.

By shrugging off his problems to dominate midfield, Barton effectively underlined the Magpies' plight. Stuart Pearce insists he will stand by the Liverpudlian despite all his past indiscretions - surely a reflection of the extent to which player power has altered the face of the game.

City's fans were less enthusiastic initially, displaying their distaste for the midfielder's actions by booing his every touch in the opening ten minutes, but their opinion was altered by the home side's 14th-minute opener.

Inevitably, Barton played his part and, just as predictably, Jean-Alain Boumsong was also involved. Confused by Cole's air kick, the Frenchman could only clear Barton's right-wing cross to the loitering Riera on the edge of the area. The Spaniard, who moved to Manchester from Espanyol at the start of the transfer window, had barely touched the ball to that point, but he duly dispatched a low drive past Shay Given's left hand.

Newcastle had already tested David James by that stage, Emre's fifth-minute free-kick thudding into the City goalkeeper's midriff, but with both Nolberto Solano and Albert Luque restricted to the bench, the visitors' first-half efforts were hampered by a chronic lack of width.

That his side's attacking improved after the introduction of both wingers at the interval merely exposed Souness' folly for leaving them out of the side in the first place.

Despite being the Magpies' most impressive player this season, Scott Parker was initially asked to play in a narrow right-midfield role that utterly negated his combative qualities. With Charles N'Zogbia also pushing in from the other wing, Newcastle's attacking was smothered in a heavily congested central area.

City, on the other hand, used their midfield fluidity to complement the lively running of Vassell. With Riera and Trevor Sinclair looking to feed him from the flanks, the England international, who remains an outside candidate for a place in Sven Goran Eriksson's World Cup squad, troubled both Boumsong and Titus Bramble with his rapid change of pace.

He came close to doubling the home side's advantage on the half-hour mark, directing a drive too close to Given after turning Boumsong inside-out, and was prominent again as Cole exploited more defensive deficiencies seven minutes before the interval.

Vassell was given time and space after receiving Kiki Musampa's pass on the left of the penalty area, but that was nothing compared with the freedom afforded Cole as he met his fellow striker's cross. Unmarked six yards out, the one-time Newcastle forward duly took advantage of his former club's generosity with a simple header.

The second-half presence of Luque and Solano at least restored a semblance of balance to the United side, with the latter's 57th-minute through ball resulting in a half-hearted penalty appeal after Shearer went down under the challenge of full-back Sun Jihai.

Any hopes of a fightback were comprehensively quashed five minutes later, though, when Vassell grabbed the goal his eye-catching display deserved. Racing on to Cole's ball over the top, the former Aston Villa striker casually held off the attentions of Boumsong before steering a precise low finish past Given.

The introduction of debutant Georgios Samaras did little to diminish City's obvious superiority and, with Shearer becoming increasingly isolated in attack, Newcastle finished the night having failed to create a single scoring opportunity of note.

Forget about Barton's intransigence, the Magpies' current level of ineptitude is the only thing that can be correctly defined as a crisis.

Manchester City 3 - 0 Newcastle United

Read more about Newcastle United FC here.