Instant recap of Newcastle United sending Villa closer to the drop: Ugh

Aston Villa lost a match that they should have won today. Look, that's an improvement, really. Most matches we don't have any business winning, so little baby steps. The first half against Newcastle saw Villa as the dominant team. But, as has become so common this season, they couldn't score to save their lives. And when a Daryl Janmaat cross came whipping into the Villa box -- and the Villa central defenders decided it wasn't something about which they should worry -- Papiss Cissé scored against the run of play and put this match away.

The second half wasn't dreadful or anything. Villa actually had a few good chances and it looked to me as if the two sides were pretty evenly matched. But getting a 0-0 draw in the second half when you lost the first half 1-0 doesn't help.

Gabby Agbonlahor did nothing today. Charles N'Zogbia was, inexplicably, brought on while Carles Gil sat on the bench. Andi Weimann was his usual invisible self. There's really not much here. I guess the upside was that Christian Benteke looked interested (and nearly scored on what would have been a stunning overhead kick goal). There was a nice half, but at this point moral victories mean absolutely nothing.

I'm out of anything interesting to say. This looks every bit like a team destined to go down, and the only thing that is keeping that from being an absolute certainty is that a bunch of other Premier League teams look much the same. We're on to West Brom on Tuesday. We go again.