Newcastle and Brighton shared the spoils as they played out an uninspiring 0-0 draw in the Premier League at St James' Park
Rafa Benitez made seven changes to his side following criticism in midweek for resting some of his usually key men against Manchester City
But the returning players failed to have the desired impact in a scrappy contest, although Newcastle shaded the efforts and were denied some early second-half opportunities by Brighton goalkeeper Mat Ryan
Newcastle fall to 16th place on 19 points - one above the relegation places - while Brighton stay in 12th with 22 points
The first half lacked in quality, but Newcastle had opportunities to break the deadlock
 Isaac Hayden made a superb run down the right flank in the 13th minute before whipping the ball into the box, but his delivery evaded the heads of Dwight Gayle and Christian Atsu with Bruno sending the ball away
Nine minutes later and Ryan was eventually tested as Mikel Merino's brilliant long ball picked out the run of Gayle on the right
 He latched onto the pass before getting to the by-line and cutting the ball back into the middle, but the hand of Ryan kept it from reaching another Newcastle player before pouncing on the rebound ahead of the waiting Joselu
Karl Darlow also got a rare hold of the ball in the 27th minute as Brighton had a spell of pressure around the box
 Pascal Gross sped away down the right-hand side before hitting a low cross into the box, but Matt Ritchie's attempted clearance could only fall to Anthony Knockaert at the top of the area
 However, his strike was straight at the Newcastle stopper
Newcastle began the second half well, but were once again denied by some heroics from Ryan
 Five minutes after the restart and a cleared corner fell to Hayden at the top of the box, with his scuffed shot taking a big deflection off the leg of Dunk to send it goalwards
 Ryan then leapt into action to spare the blushes of his team-mate and push away the ball
The Brighton goalkeeper was called into action again in the 59th minute as Atsu picked out Gayle in between the two Seagulls centre-backs
 The forward glanced his delivery towards goal, but Ryan made another leaping save to deny him the opener
In a similar story to the first half, Brighton also tested Darlow 10 minutes later
 Shane Duffy met a Gross corner at the back post, nodding it down for Dunk in the middle, but his own headed effort was palmed away by the Newcastle goalkeeper
"Obviously we are not happy because we wanted to win
 We created a little bit, but not too much, and they were well organised, so it was difficult to break them down
"I think in the second half, we had more chances and we were pushing harder so this is the positive thing
 The reaction of the team is that if something is wrong then they don't give up and they continue, so that is a positive too
""I thought we were good today
 In regards to the result, I think on the balance of play, it was a fair result but on the day, I thought we were the better side of the two
"In terms of chances, we needed Mat Ryan in particular to make one very good save and it got very edgy towards the end as it would do away at Newcastle
 I thought we had some really good periods in the game
" "The performance was not of the level you would want [from Newcastle]
 Particularly after making seven changes to the side
 And they never really got going
"They had two chances, Brighton had one chance
 And Mat Ryan was up for the save
 The first one was a bit of a fluke
 Isaac Hayden took a shot and it takes a deflection, the goalkeeper has to change his position and he does really, really well to save it
"Another solid performance from Ryan - who could be the difference for the Seagulls this season - even if his team could not produce the goods at the other end
Although he was a spectator for much of the game as Newcastle often dragged shots well wide of his range, he pulled off some superb saves when called upon and was vital to securing a point for Brighton early in the second half
Both teams are back in action on New Year's Day, with Newcastle travelling to Stoke at 3pm and Brighton hosting Bournemouth in the early kick-off, live on  from 12pm
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