AT THREE O’CLOCK, SIR BOBBY ROBSON said, this looked like being a tough game for Newcastle United; by four it was not so tricky and by five the first Leeds United supporters were being led away in handcuffs as a protest outside the Billy Bremner Suite threatened to turn ugly. Around six, even football’s ever youthful knight seemed ready for a cup of cocoa and bed, but while Robson turned 70 last week, it is Leeds for whom the clock is still ticking.

“No surrender to the board” and “Where’s the liar gone?” were just a couple of the chants hurled by fans young and old, tattooed and suited, as they vented their spleen after a defeat bordering on a humiliation. “Three-nil to the plc”, was another. How strange, then, that with Peter Ridsdale, the chairman — and the target, rightly or wrongly, of so much vitriol — declining an invitation to step outside and confront the agitators (he has agreed to attend a fans’ forum next month), it should be left to Robson to mount the strongest defence of a club seemingly on the point of implosion.

“Leeds will come back,” Robson said . “Three years ago, they looked to be one of the strongest clubs in the country and all they have been guilty of is borrowing money to try to get success. If they hadn’t borrowed the money, people would have said they were not ambitious. They have tried to be with the big boys and the only way is investment.”

From debt, though, dismantling was never likely to be far behind. The team that won 2-0 at St James’ Park in September, the last in the Barclaycard Premiership to do so, included Jonathan Woodgate, Lee Bowyer and Olivier Dacourt, with Robbie Keane not long departed and Robbie Fowler to follow. On Saturday, their side stripped of stars and their followers robbed of ambition — and, incidentally, the overdraft still in the region of £70 million — Leeds disintegrated.

Newcastle should have won at least 5-0, could have had eight or nine, and this without ever finding their fluent best.

That Newcastle have replaced Leeds as the team most likely to break the Arsenal-Manchester United duopoly is not in doubt. The baton was officially handed over with Woodgate in exchange for an £8 million cheque when Terry Venables was forced to sell his best defender. When the Leeds manager, absent on Saturday because of flu, hears that Woodgate may now struggle to break into Sir Bobby’s side, he will need extra medication. Knight nurse, perhaps? Having expressed his sympathy for the plight that his fellow former England manager finds himself in and defended Leeds for a policy that lurched so quickly from “spend, spend, spend” to “sell, sell, sell”, Robson maintained there is no likelihood of fans having to take to the streets of Newcastle in protest. His club, he said, are balancing the books as well as threatening the balance of Premiership power.

“We have spent money this season too, but money we have already earned from the Champions League,” he said. “Like Leeds, we have borrowed money, but that is for the next stand — we get 52,000 for every home game. The chairman is investing cash in good young players.”

In the absence of the injured Jermaine Jenas, it was another one of those youngsters, Kieron Dyer, who stole the show with his first two Premiership goals of the season, both taken with the assurance of someone who should score far more (he also hit a post), and a memorable display of selfless running. Alan Shearer, who left Lucas Radebe and Raul Bravo nursing head wounds through careless use of his elbows, headed the third. As enduring and prolific as he is, you suspect that had either Alan Smith or Craig Bellamy been guilty of the same offences, there would have been a red card and an FA charge to follow. “One or two heads went down,” Eddie Gray, Venables’s assistant, said, without appreciating his own delicious irony.

Faced by such feeble resistance, though, it was Newcastle’s defence that really caught the eye. “They were magnificent,” Bellamy said. “That gave us a platform and with our attacking ability we are always going to score goals.”

So where does Woodgate fit into all this? On Saturday, wisely as it turned out, he was ordered by Newcastle to stay away from Elland Road so as not to inflame passions further. Next weekend, when third plays fourth as Chelsea visit St James’ Park, he might be on the margins again. “He has looked brilliant in training,” Robson said, “but he might have a problem getting into this back four. Two weeks before we signed him he didn’t want to go anywhere. To be fair to him, he loved Leeds — they gave him his chance.” Newcastle are not alone in discovering that Leeds’s losses are somebody else’s gains.

Leeds United (4-4-2): P Robinson 6 — D Mills 4, M Duberry 4, L Radebe 4 (sub: T Lucic, 72min), R Bravo 3 — G Kelly 4, P Okon 4 (sub: N Barmby, 71), Seth Johnson 3, J Wilcox 3 (sub: J Milner, 46 4) — A Smith 5, H Kewell 3. Substitutes not used: N Martyn, I Harte. NEXT: Manchester United (a). FORM: LWLLDL

Newcastle United (4-4-2): S Given 5 — A Griffin 6 (sub: N Dabizas, 84), A O’Brien 7, T Bramble 6, A Hughes 6 — B Kerr 6 (sub: F Ameobi, 80), K Dyer 7 (sub: C Acuña, 80), G Speed 7, L Robert 6 — A Shearer 6, C Bellamy 6. Substitutes not used: A Caig, M Chopra. NEXT: Chelsea (h). FORM: WDWWWD Shots on target: (h) 5 (a) 9. Fouls: (h) 14 (a) 19. Offsides: (h) 2 (a) 7