Wanderers boss Sam Allardyce fears poor refereeing decisions and equally poor finishing could condemn his team to an uphill fight for Premiership survival.

Allardyce was talking after last night's narrow 1-0 defeat at St James' Park which saw third placed Newcastle close the gap at the top to two points behind second placed Manchester United, and seven behind leaders Arsenal.

For Allardyce, looking up from his club's position fourth from the bottom and now five points adrift of Birmingham it was another disappointing night.

The game was settled by a solitary first-half goal by young England prospect Jermaine Jenas, who tucked home Craig Bellamy's clever pass in the 18th minute.

But Allardyce claimed two penalty decisions that were not given and a bad miss by Bernard Mendy cost his team dear, yet again.

He said: "As always away from home we had a controversial decision go against us, in fact two. I've seen both again and I'm convinced they were penalties.

"I still think that at the end of the day, everything's right apart from a natural out-and-out goalscorer for us now.

"Michael Ricketts has had a brief spell, Henrik Pedersen's had a brief spell of putting it in the net, Youri Djorkaeff has had a brief spell, but I haven't got anybody in double figures, or I haven't got anybody close to double figures, and until I can try to resolve that in the next two weeks, it's going to be a problem for us right the way through to the end of the season.

"Generally what will happen is, you will have your best spell in the game and you must, as everybody knows, punish the opposition when you get that, because if you're going to get a good spell against Newcastle United, you know it's not going to last that long.

"But if you can sustain it for as long as we did in the second-half, you've got to take advantage of it because ultimately, they will probably punish you even more.

"We defended very well so they didn't catch us on the break, but unfortunately our quality wasn't there in front of goal."

The one bright point of the night was the news from The Valley where West Ham took an early lead but eventually lost 4-2 to stay firmly rooted with West Brom at the foot of the table - four points behind Wanderers.