Dyer desperate to escape the Turin tears

It was all there in black and white, on the Champions' League Matchday Two Group E results sheet in front of Sir Bobby Robson. Newcastle United were bottom of the table, pointless and goalless. Their next match was away to Juventus, the Zebras of Turin, 5-0 winners on Tuesday night against Dynamo Kiev, the team who had beaten the Magpies of Tyneside 2-0 on Matchday One.

"I'm not going to go," Sir Bobby said, when asked about the trip to northern Italy. "I'm going to stay at home." He was joking, of course, though the grey knight had every reason to cry. There were tears in Turin back in 1990, when he led England to their World Cup semi-final against West Germany. Paul Gascoigne, in fact, was at St James' Park last Tuesday night, watching Sir Bobby's boys take their 1-0 beating against Feyenoord. Chris Waddle was in the Milburn Stand too, as a member of the Five Live radio commentary team.

Perhaps it will be different for Robson's team this coming Tuesday: no penalties to pay and no Turin tears. Then again, perhaps not. "I think we'll have to take an army there next week," Robson said, noting Kiev's 0-5 fate in the Stadio delle Alpi. Defensive reinforcements would certainly be a start, judging by the Nationwide League standard of back-line play Newcastle have brought with them to the Champions' League. Against Feyenoord they were worryingly short of substance in midfield too.

True, by the end of the 90 minutes they had fashioned more than enough chances to overcome the fourth-minute goal they gifted to Sebastian Pardo. Overall, though, for the second Champions' League match in succession, the Newcastle players looked out of their depth. The one notable exception was Alan Shearer. Even with his head still wounded, he was outstanding from start to finish – a one-man bandage, you could say.

The Toon Army must be wincing at the thought of what damage might be done to their team by a Juventus side rejuvenated under Marcello Lippi – with the £18m Marco Di Vaio and the in-form Alessandro Del Piero inflicting so much pain on opposition defences, prompted by Pavel Nedved's incisive passing, and with David Trezeguet razor-sharp and ready to return to starting duty following injury. The big hope for Newcastle is to inflict some damage of their own.

In the absence of Craig Bellamy, suspended for three Champions' League matches after using his head in his contretemps with the Kiev midfielder Tiberiu Ghioane, the onus in that department will fall upon Kieron Dyer. It was his brilliant breakaway goal against Zeljeznicar in Sarajevo last month that set Newcastle on their way to qualification for the Champions' League. Against Feyenoord, though, Dyer lived up to his name rather than his reputation. Against Juventus, if Newcastle are to have any hope of staying in Europe – with a consolation place in the Uefa Cup, let alone a place in the second group phase of the Champions' League – they are going to need something more sparkling from the young man Robson calls his "little gem".

"It's up to myself, Nobby [Nolberto Solano] and Laurent [Robert] to take the pressure off the defence," Dyer said. "We're just not clicking in that final third at the moment. When it comes to the final ball it just isn't happening. It's very frustrating, because we're putting the defence under a tremendous amount of pressure by not scoring. Against Feyenoord we had three chances before they scored and if we'd slipped in one of those we could have gone on and built from there.

"We've got to start scoring. That's the fifth time this season we haven't scored a goal. Last season that was unheard of. We're getting into the same positions, but not producing the same final ball. People used to go on about myself and Nobby, how telepathic our play was. Against Feyenoord, I lost count of the number of times I missed him with a pass and he missed me.

"It's so frustrating. You can tell the crowd are getting frustrated and the players are getting frustrated. We've just got to get our heads down now and work extremely hard on the training pitch. In my case and Nobby's maybe we need to get to the by-line and whip 100 balls in every day. It's the only problem at the moment."

The major problem for Newcastle now is that another blank in Turin, goals-wise and points-wise, would leave the odds against them making progress at 100-1 and lengthening. When they played in the Champions' League five years ago, they had four points and five goals after their first two matches, and still failed to make it to the second phase. Their crucial defeat was inflicted on home soil by Dutch opposition, PSV Eindhoven winning 2-0 at St James'.

Despite the less-than-auspicious start this time, Dyer maintained: "It's not all over yet. I said in the changing room on Tuesday: 'We'll probably beat Juventus away now'. That's how unpredictable we are. That's how Newcastle United are. I think it will suit us going to Juventus and to Feyenoord. I honestly think we're better when we're a counterattacking team. It's good when teams come at us and leave so much space in behind, because we've got so much pace in the team. So maybe it could be a blessing in disguise that our next game is Juventus away."

That blessing might seem heavily disguised, but a less-fancied side from the North-east of England have gone to Turin and beaten Juventus before. Back in 1910, when the Football League refused permission for one of its clubs to represent England in the Lipton World Football Trophy, a forerunner of the World Cup organised by the tea baron Sir Thomas Lipton, West Auckland took up the invitation instead. Third from bottom of the Northern League, the team of County Durham miners beat the professional footballers of Juve 2-0 in the final. The tears in Turin that night were strictly of Italian origin.