City boss Peter Taylor said after today's match against Newcastle that "Football can be cruel" after City went down to late goal at St. James Park thanks to a deflection from Gary Rowett.

In his post match speech he went onto say, "We deserved to have a clean sheet for some of the performances that were put in today.

"It was an inexperienced team and I was keen for Tim Flowers to play and bring his experience into the team.

"He pulled off a wonderful save in the first-half and an even better one in the second-half.

"He cannot believe the deflection on the goal when the ball was heading straight into his hands.

"The only good thing for us is that the lads put in a decent performance today and can hold their heads up for the way they played.

"I also felt for our supporters, so far up there in the stand, they paid good money and made a long journey and it would have been nice for them to go down the A1 with something.

"With the current run any result would have been a good one for us because we want to stop the run of defeats.

"But I don't want to be too negative.

"The way the team has played today I couldn't ask for much more.

"The players heads are very down in the dressing room because they believed they deserved something out of the match.

"I can only apologise to our supporters for the current run and hopefully we can bring it to an end next week against Tottenham.

"If we had won ten matches on the spin I would have been happy to take a good deal of the credit so I have to hold my hands up and take some of the blame for our recent defeats."

Man of the Match Tim Flowers admitted that at times City were "A little bit fortunate" but insisted that we deserved something from this game saying, "At times we rode our luck but I also felt we defended manfully for 90 minutes.

"At times it was all hands to the pump and I would be interested to see the stats because it felt as though they crossed the ball into the box about 500 times.

"We could have nicked a point but we are not going to make excuses, we have got seven of our best players missing, so it was a manful effort.

"It nice to be playing again, I've only had about 60 minutes of action in the last four months.

"Peter Taylor spoke to me at about 1.45pm and asked me how I was feeling. I said I wasn't fully match fit but the gaffer decided I would play.

"I'm not fully match fit but that doesn't mean I'll play better than that because it was just one of those games for me.

"Now I feel incredibly tired but very satisfied with the way I played.

"As a goalkeeper you have your ups and downs, you make your mistakes and then you have good day.

"I suppose the idea is to be pretty even most of the time.

"I was happy with the way I played, happy to get through the game really.

"I've had a problem with my hip and a hip block injection which is what they give pensioners who are waiting for a hip replacement operation.

"Hopefully that will get me through to the start of next season.

"The goal was very cruel, the lads were holding their heads in disbelief.

"But when the balls in the box so much and it ricochets around there is always the chance that sort of thing will happen.

"You can't complain about the team performance.

"People have written articles about us recently which hurt both Peter Taylor and the players.

"But we showed today, with basically a shadow squad, that we can battle for 90 minutes against a massive club like Newcastle United.

"I don't know if Cort's shot would have gone in without the deflection.

"He cut the ball back into the post he was running away from and I don't know who it hit or if it would have gone in.

"The fans shouldn't worry too much over the summer, we played today without the backbone of our team, they shouldn't be too downhearted.

"We'll keep fighting and try and get something out of what's left of the season if we can."

Newcastle's number two Mick Wadsworth, who stood in for an absent Bobby Robson, saluted City's Man of the Match Flowers by saying, "It was turning into the Tim Flowers show. It was a marvelous performance by a top class keeper.

"Everyone on our bench marvelled at the saves he made but I am just delighted we managed to keep a clean sheet.

"Tim will feel he deserved a clean sheet as well and Carl Cort should have scored before he got the winner.

"But he persevered and I think we deserved the victory. Leicester played very deep and were very cautious.

"You can understand that considering the sequence of results they've had in recent weeks."