Tony Pulis has questioned why the game was still being played when Papiss Cisse grabbed Newcastle’s late, late winner at St James’ Park today.

The Eagles looked to be on their way to picking up a useful point with three minutes of stoppage time signalled, but manager Pulis reckoned time was already up when Cisse headed home from Hatem Ben Arfa’s delivery.

Palace felt they should have been awarded a free-kick bang on 93 minutes for handball against Mike Williamson.

However, referee Lee Probert allowed play to continue and up popped Cisse right at the death to deal Crystal Palace’s survival prospects a blow.

Pulis said: “It’s disappointing. I thought for an hour we did very, very well.

“We tired a little bit at the end. They had a couple of chances at the end hitting the bar and that chance that went across the face of the goal, but I thought we had really seen it out.

“The disappointing thing is if you look at the video we think we should have had a free-kick outside their box with 20 seconds to go and then they come down and they score, which is over time.

“The first half he played a minute and 40 seconds overtime and in the second half I think it is 3m40s when they score a goal.”

On whether Williamson should have been penalised for handling, Pulis added: “It is a difficult one but he has actually turned his hand into it.

“From what we’ve seen there it is a 50-50 one and I suppose we shouldn’t really expect to get anything.

“The fourth official actually said it was time when Williamson actually handballed it, if he handballed it, from then and them going down the bottom was 40 seconds.”

Palace’s best spell came at the start of the second half when Yannick Bolasie hit the woodwork but Pulis was keen to put the result in perspective bearing in mind the budgets of the respective clubs.

He said: “I thought we had some good opportunities.

“Yala has hit the bar and we’ve had one or two chances but I think sometimes you get blaize about things.

“You have a look at what Newcastle have spent on their team, their wage bill, you have a look at 52,000 here today – we have just got promoted.

“The odds are stacked against us and the players again, like at Sunderland, they’ve worked their socks off.

“They kept going and we caused them some problems.

“What we need to do is make sure that when we get chances and opportunities we take them, and that has been our biggest downfall.”

The Selhurst boss added: “The performance of the players was brilliant today.

“What we need is a break, we need one or two little things going for us.

“We missed a great chance at Sunderland in the last couple of minutes when KG blasted one over the bar and today we’ve got done in the 94th minute.”