The 30-year-old offered the most frank assessment of his side's capitulation against Fulham last weekend when he admitted they had defended less effectively than a Sunday League side.

The goalkeeper's anger at the ease with which Brian McBride and Carlos Bocanegra snatched all three points inside the last eight minutes was understandable when he had not had a difficult save to make during the rest of the game.

Given and his team-mates did return to winning ways with Thursday's 1-0 UEFA Cup victory over Levadia Tallinn in Estonia. However, he knows the tests to come over the next two weeks or so will get progressively tougher with Liverpool, Everton and Manchester United waiting in the wings after today's trip to West Ham.

"We have got a couple of difficult weeks coming up.

It's going to be very tough . . . but that is why you play in the Premiership.

"You expect tough games and that is how it is going to be."

The tame surrender against Fulham, coupled with a less than effusive response to the club's late transfer window dealings, left St James' Park wreathed in gloom.

But, Given admits there is no option but to get over the disappointment and set about putting things right.

"We were all disappointed, it was a disappointing result. But we cannot change last week's result, it has gone.

"We have got to pick ourselves up and move on. It's nice that Thursday night's game came along so quickly and we got a positive result.

"Sometimes after a bad result, the best thing you can do is play football again, and it was nice that the game came so quickly.

"We had to put a huge disappointment behind us . . . and it was a huge disappointment.

"We wanted three points on Saturday and that did not turn out to be the case, and it is a hard pill to swallow sometimes."

The game at West Ham sees Roeder return to the club where he was manager when he was struck down by a brain tumour in April 2003.

Having previously guided the Hammers to a top-seven finish, he was eventually relieved of his duties following relegation at the end of the 2002-03 season.

He would willingly settle for the same result the Magpies achieved on their last visit to Upton Park in December last year, when they won 4-2.

Roeder was still Academy manager at Newcastle then as Graeme Souness's men claimed all three points courtesy of a Michael Owen hattrick and an Alan Shearer strike.

But with Owen facing most of the new campaign in the treatment room and Shearer having retired, the question of who is going to provide the goals this time around remains unanswered.

Shola Ameobi's injury problems remain a concern, while £10 million new boy Obafemi Martins is yet to demonstrate the ability he showed at Inter Milan.

However, Roeder remains confident that his optimism for the season is well-founded.

"Our expectations are so high . . . and rightly so . . . that when we do not get close enough to those expectations, then outside forces become very gloomy about prospects.

"If this club did not have such high expectations, people would not get down so easily.

"I understand that, but I do think it needs people within the club . . . certainly the manager, his staff and the players . . . to be positive people, and we are."

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WEST HAM UNITED v NEWCASTLE UNITED Upton Park, 3.00