NICKY BUTT was lauded in the build up to the visit of Portsmouth for the way he speaks his mind in the dressing room when mistakes have been made. On Saturday, however, the stand-in Newcastle United captain was left speechless.

The 32-year-old was as shocked as everyone else inside St James' Park when dreadful defending allowed Portsmouth to coast into a three-goal lead within 11 minutes of the first whistle.

It was an incredible turn of events that eventually led to experienced Brazilian defender Cacapa - at fault for two of the goals - being hauled off just after Newcastle had pulled one back just after the quarter of an hour mark.

From there on in the Magpies did at least tighten up but, given how they are yet to claim as much as a point from losing positions this season, Portsmouth never looked like throwing away their lead.

And instead of looking at which of his team-mates were to blame for the horrendous start to the fixture, Butt chose to search within for answers.

"You look at yourself first and foremost but obviously you look at the team, how you can do better," said Butt. "Were they individual errors? All I know is the first one from Noe Pamarot was a 'worldie' but if the second two were bad defending it's hard to point the finger at one person, but if that's what's happened, that's happened.

"When you go in at half-time 3-1 down it's a team thing. If you feel like you've got something to say, you say something but I didn't feel like I had anything to say."

With Portsmouth striker Benjani - who grabbed the third - claiming he had never experienced a start like it since his days as a schoolboy in Zimbabwe, Butt's experience of such an opening is more recent.

On that occasion he was part of a Manchester United midfield able to come from behind to eventually win 5-3 --something never on the cards on Saturday.

"It's a long time since I've been in a game like that. It was a disastrous 12 minutes. The first goal was a wonder goal, that can happen to any team, but the two goals after that were really slack," said Butt.

"It doesn't count for anything now but we got back into the game and I thought we were quite good. There was a little ray of light with the goal but half-time came and killed us really. We couldn't get going in the second half and all in all it was a disastrous day.

"It was a case of 'Oh no'. We basically just wanted to get to half-time then try to change it. You can't explain it really it's just shock."

Butt's fifth yellow card of the season means Newcastle will be bereft of his services in Saturday's eagerly-anticipated Wear-Tyne derby at the Stadium of Light.

The one game suspension is a huge blow to Butt, who had hoped to figure in his first Newcastle-Sunderland fixture, which would have been the first chance he has had to take on one of former team-mate Roy Keane's teams.

Saturday's calamitous defeat could easily be viewed as a dreadful way to build up for such a heated fixture, yet Butt regards the trip to Sunderland as a perfect opportunity to right the many wrongs.

"It's the best sort of game to go into for me, it's a derby and all qualities to a point go out of the window," said Butt, who played in numerous Manchester derbies before leaving three years ago.

"In the first 20 minutes you've got to give it your all, get stuck in and fight. The way you've played over the last few weeks goes out of the window, it's just a one-off game, so the bigger the game the better."

Goalkeeper Shay Given, who spent time on loan at Sunderland before moving to Tyneside, will almost certainly be missing on Wearside this weekend.

Given was a notable absentee from the Newcastle team that lost to Portsmouth after suffering further problems with groin.

At this stage he is expected to be out for a couple of weeks but, given the history of that injury with the player, manager Sam Allardyce has not ruled out the possibility of further surgery for the Irishman.

"He's a bit of a worry. He is cleared for some rehab and it is an over-training situation," said Allardyce. "He may have gone too far into fatigue and damaged the muscle. We first thought it may be an operation."