NEWCASTLE UNITED 2, Wanderers 1: IT really did sound too good to be true. Forty-eight hours after Sam Allardyce ambitiously suggested Wanderers had the ability to finish in the top four of the Premiership, events conspired to turn his words into nothing more than just a flight of fancy.

On Friday, the Reebok boss admitted it was asking a lot to make up an eight-point gap on Everton but, he argued, it was within the capabilities of a team on a 10-match unbeaten run.

So, after Everton romped to victory at Villa Park on Saturday, the burning question was: Could Wanderers respond?

For 45 minutes at St James' Park on Sunday, you would not have backed against them.

With a good measure of style and no shortage of spirit, they squared up to Newcastle, rode a couple of blows and were deservedly level at half time after Stelios had cancelled out Lee Bowyer's opener.

But it all went wrong in the second half, when they lost their momentum, lost their way and lost any real hope of challenging for that Champions League place Allardyce genuinely believed was achievable.

"I think that is very difficult now," said the goalscorer, Stelios, careful not to contradict his manager but admitting that an 11-point deficit now leaves Wanderers chasing the more realistic target of UEFA Cup qualification.

"If we manage to get in the UEFA Cup, we will be very pleased. That is my opinion.

"This was a key match and, if we had taken the three points, it would have been different. But now we've lost, we have to search for the UEFA."

Before that, Allardyce and his players must first search for reasons why they managed to produce such a chalk and cheese performance at St James' Park.

At half-time they fancied their chances, at the end they had to concede that they were well-beaten. So galling, so frustrating, so destructive of the confidence they had built since last tasting defeat at home to Blackburn Rovers on December 27 .

It wasn't so much the losing that Allardyce was sore about, as the manner of the defeat.

Having approached the game with the confidence befitting a team that had won its last five on the road, Wanderers were suddenly and surprisingly subdued, allowing Newcastle to take the initiative, dictate the pace and, ultimately, claim the victory.

"We came so far to get so near to being so good and having the best season we've ever had," the manager said, all-but acknowledging that the weekend had finally put paid to his top four dream. "But we let ourselves down."

Wanderers rode their luck and, on another day, might have held out for a point but there was an inevitability about Kieron Dyer's 68th minute matchwinner, lashed in after Alan Shearer's shot cannoned back off Bruno N'Gotty.

And it was perhaps fitting that the dashing England midfielder should take the glory since he had earlier been cynically denied by Fernando Hierro's tackle that looked for all the world a red-card offence.

Hierro clearly denied Dyer a goalscoring opportunity, when he took him down from behind on the edge of the penalty area, but it appeared that referee Steve Dunn was correct in judging that he was not the last line of Wanderers' defence as both managers agreed, clearly having studied video replays.

No one will ever know how Souness would have reacted had Newcastle not taken the honours in this 100th league meeting of the two famous old clubs. But it was of no consequence.

Wanderers deserved nothing for their second half performance, which was all the more puzzling in the light of their achievements in the first.

With Kevin Nolan suspended and El-Hadji Diouf failing to recover from the ankle injury he picked up on international duty with Senegal, Allardyce came up with an exciting team selection he had hinted at after seeing Wanderers beat Fulham in the FA Cup.

Transfer window signing Vincent Candela stayed in at left-back to make his first Premiership start, and Ricardo Gardner was given an attacking role.

It looked like being a master-stroke, until Wanderers were forced into a major rethink when Nicky Hunt emerged from a firm-but-fair challenge with Amdy Faye having dislocated his left shoulder for the third time in two years.

It was tough on the youngster, who survived a leg-break scare in the FA Cup at Oldham last month, and caused serious disruption to Wanderers, who hurriedly switched Candela to right-back and withdrew Gardner into his familiar defensive role, sending on Khalilou Fadiga, who proved a much less effective substitute.

Souness took the opportunity to get fresh instructions to his players and, when Bowyer exploited the weakness on the Wanderers' left to start and finish the move that put Newcastle in front on 34 minutes, the Geordies thought they were on their way.

Previous Bolton teams might have wilted at that point but the way they fashioned the equaliser seven minutes later - there was excellent approach work even before Jay Jay Okocha, Kevin Davies and Gary Speed provided the telling touches to tee up Stelios - said a lot for the skill and the spirit of the 2005 vintage.

How Speed would have loved to show his old Tyneside fans, not to mention his old team-mates, how well he is doing at his new club.

But, for all his energy and endeavour, he could not inspire a response from Wanderers as Newcastle took a decisive grip at the start of the second period and managed to sustain it.

Wanderers had one chance to salvage something, when Candela intercepted Bowyer's pass inside his own half and showed his attacking instincts to surge into the heart of the Newcastle area, only to fire his shot too high.

It would have been a welcome point but not a deserved one.

"We just went further and further backwards in the second half," Stelios said. "It was like we were just defending and defending and waiting for them to score and, if you play these big teams in their home and you are defending all the time, one moment is going to cost you.

"They put us under a lot of pressure and in the end we lost a match which, in the first half, we deserved to take the three points, not only one.

"We lost our belief. Our goal came at a good time for us, taking us to 1-1. I hoped it would give us a lot of confidence for the second half, but it happened completely the opposite."

Spelling out the need for Wanderers to respond positively, he added: "Every game is a new start, a new challenge for everybody. We lost this one, now we must go for the next one."