A last-gasp goal from Peter Crouch yesterday afternoon was enough to grab a point for Stoke and deny John Carver a first home win since taking over the Newcastle hot seat.

Carver couldn’t hide his frustration that his side hadn’t held out for all three points.

“To concede a goal when you’re one-nil up with two minutes to play, that’s not professional,” said the Newcastle boss.

“It’s not the result that frustrates me it’s the manner in which we conceded the goal. In the Premier League you’ve got to go to the last minute, whether it’s the 94th or 95th, and the lads have to learn that.”

The first half was a fairly uneventful affair and the best chances came late on with Ayoze Perez and Sammy Ameobi going close for Newcastle and Mame Biram Diouf doing likewise for the visitors.

Newcastle started to impose themselves and, with a quarter of an hour to play, a move involving Gabriel Obertan, Perez and Moussa Sissoko ended with latter laying the ball off to Jack Colback, who curled his first-time shot away from Asmir Begovic and in off the post.

Stoke boss Mark Hughes was aggrieved by the fact that minutes earlier Colback had escaped a second yellow for a scything tackle on Victor Moses.

“It was a good performance from us, but the disappointment is that the referee wasn’t brave enough to make the right decision at a key moment of the game.

“Colback’s allowed to stay on and lo and behold he scored the goal. If the referee makes the right decision Newcastle would have been down to 10 men and I think we would have gone on to win.”

In the end Stoke had to settle for a point as Crouch beat Daryl Janmaat to Geoff Cameron’s cross to head home.