There is an unwritten law in football, when your striker is in form ... you move heaven and hell to keep him in the team. But it didn't happen with West Brom on Sunday.
Steve Clarke defended his decision to start with Romelu Lukaku instead of Shane Long at Newcastle.
The Baggies boss left the in-form Ireland international on the bench, opting for the Belgian striker.
Lukaku scored Albion’s goal – though he also missed two excellent first-half chances.
Steve Clarke: “Romelu hasn’t played from the start for a number of weeks.
“I have a fantastic replacement in Shane Long.
"Shane has been fantastic for us and didn’t really deserve to be on the bench, but sometimes when you have so many good strikers you have to make decisions.
“I thought it was the right change. We were the best team going forward and we only lost because of a late deflection. We didn’t deserve it.
“If he’d scored the other two, he’d have put me even more right.
“When you have a squad of players you can’t keep disappointing them all of the time.
“Romelu has been a good sub for us, and every now and again he’ll get a chance to play.
“Yesterday he got that chance, Shane normally gets the nod and then he’s usually the one coming off – because playing as a lone striker is a difficult shift – but I felt yesterday I wanted to reverse it.
"Because of the result it’ll be looked at as a negative, but I thought in terms of the performance and the way we played it was a positive.”