CARDIFF, Wales (AP) - Cardiff was relegated from the Premier League on Saturday after Newcastle ended a six-game losing streak with a 3-0 victory over the Welsh club.
The loss leaves Cardiff in last place, five points behind 17th-place Sunderland with just a game to play, ensuring that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team will return to the League Championship after just a single season in the top flight.
Sunderland won 1-0 at Manchester United to edge closer to safety, a result that also sent Fulham down to the League Championship after 13 years in the first division.
Solskjaer was hired in January to replace the fired Malky Mackay, but failed to turn things around and the team never looked likely to beat a struggling Newcastle side.
“It was an important game,” Solskjaer said. “We performed well enough, we just didn’t take the chances.”
Shola Ameobi opened the scoring in the 18th minute and Loic Remy and Steven Taylor added late goals to ease some of the pressure on under-fire manager Alan Pardew.
Fans had threatened a mass walkout in the 69th minute to protest the team’s recent poor results, but only a few hundred supporters actually left.
Newcastle is in ninth place, but has faded badly in the second half of the season and fans have voiced their frustrations with Pardew and owner Mike Ashley for weeks.
Cardiff had a chance to take the lead in the sixth minute but striker Fraizer Campbell sent his shot from the edge of the box wastefully wide.
Newcastle dominated for stretches after that, and Cardiff goalkeeper David Marshall made a number of saves before Ameobi headed hom a cross from Moussa Sissoko.
Cardiff wasted three good chances to equalize in the first half and Solskjaer brought on Craig Bellamy after the break to spark the visitors’ attack. But Cardiff’s fate was sealed in the final minutes as Remy tapped home after Tiote’s 87th-minute shot had been blocked into his path, and Taylor completed the scoring in injury time when he stabbed home from Remy’s knock-down.
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