Yet the manager has defended his decision to change his side's tactics.
Roeder dropped the in-form Oba Martins, going with Shola Ameobi as a lone striker when the player is still carrying a hip injury. Then the gaffa played Nicky Butt in a five-man midfield designed to stifle the opposition's creativity, and depending on his injury-hit defence to sit back and handle Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo..
The Red Devils ran out easy winners at Old Trafford, as Newcastle struggled from the kick-off. With Shola Ameobi looking a forlorn figure up front, and midweek Uefa Cup hero Oba Martins kicking his heels on the bench, the fans were right to wonder what the hell was going on.
Martins came on with Newcastle already 2-0 down and he could do nothing to change the course of the match. Yet Roeder felt he was correct to play a 4-5-1 formation and said "no team goes to Old Trafford to attack".
Yet, for the fans to see their team sit back and "die" the way they did, was a hard pill to swallow. The Toon fans, even when the Mags were 2-0 down, STILL out-sung the home supporters. And the moral of the story ... and are you reading this Glenn Roeder ... you DON'T go ANYWHERE expecting defeat!
If you go down 5-0, so be it, so long as you give it your best shot and TRY and win! The performance was shocking, but it had nothing to do with the players. What sort of man can seriously think about putting pressure on a defence as poorly organised as ours? Yet that was Roeder's plan. "Sit back, brace yourself, and hold out as long as you can"
It was seen as common sense when Martins was replaced with 20 minutes remaining on Thursday evening when he was after his hat-trick. We thought the plan was to save his legs for Old Trafford. How wrong we were.