Jerome - Styles should apologise

Jerome: Learn from mistakes

Cameron Jerome feels that referee Rob Styles' controversial penalty award could cost Birmingham dear.

Jerome had given Birmingham the lead at St James' Park, and believes that Styles made the wrong decision when awarding Newcastle a penalty for an apparent foul by Mat Sadler on Obafemi Martins.

Martins picked himself up to dispatch the spot-kick, and Habib Beye conpounded the Blues' misery by scoring an injury-time winner for the Magpies.

Despite admitting that he did not have the best of views of the incident, Jerome still feels that the referee got it wrong, and ultimately cost Birmingham a point.

Mistake

"I think it's poor refereeing again and obviously we're very disappointed with that," Jerome told the Birmingham Mail.

"I think the referee should have a look at that and if he's made a mistake he should come out and say he's made a mistake.

"I was on the halfway line so I didn't understand what had happened, but Mat said he kicked the ball away and the geezer tripped over him."

Jerome does admit though that the players themselves must take some of the blame for the result, and that concentration levels must be kept high at all times when facing Premier League opposition.

Battled hard

"We've got to learn from our mistakes and pick up from set-pieces," he said.

"Obviously it's concentration in the last minute of the game. Someone's lost their man and that's how it goes.

"It's football and we're disappointed we didn't hang on for the draw when it looked like we were going to.

"We battled hard, we defended well, we did everything to weather the storm.

"But sometimes there's nothing you can do about it. We did it to Tottenham last week and now we've had it done to us. It's swings and roundabouts."