They say the table does not lie: Newcastle United are sixth in the Premier League and Crystal Palace are bottom of it. But the standings do not tell the whole tale of this wet afternoon on Tyneside. Rafa Benítez grimaced his way through much of the game, while Roy Hodgson grimaced his way through the aftermath.

“Can we do better?” Benítez asked after James McArthur’s 86th-minute clearing header cannoned off Mikel Merino’s forehead and flew past Julián Speroni. “Yes,” the Newcastle manager answered. But he also mentioned “determination” and “character” and those were the qualities that put his team across the line, something Palace were unable to achieve for all their first-half possession.

Benítez knows his team have convinced more in previous matches but there is always a different kind of satisfaction to be taken from collecting points while not flowing. Had he been offered 14 points after nine games when the transfer window closed, the Spaniard would have accepted gladly. “We are coming from the Championship, we didn’t sign too many players,” he said. “You tell me after 1 September that this is where we will be, I will tell you ‘fine’. Credit to our players, they are doing really well.”

A clean sheet pleased Benítez and the Newcastle fans will have been impressed with the manner in which Florian Lejeune strong-armed his way through a tight tussle of a match. Gareth Southgate was also here, taking in Jamaal Lascelles and Jonjo Shelvey from Newcastle and the lively Andros Townsend for Palace.

But for all Townsend’s activity, with Wilfried Zaha in tandem, Palace barely forced the Newcastle keeper, Rob Elliot, into a save. There was a 23rd-minute cross-shot that Elliot dived on, which came at a stage when Palace had more possession and carried more threat.

But with Benítez trying to change Newcastle’s gears via substitutions in the second half, Palace’s share of the play ebbed. There was one exception, in the 80th minute, when the substitute Ruben Loftus-Cheek was granted the ball by a careless first touch from the just-on Aleksandar Mitrovic. Suddenly free in the Newcastle area, Loftus-Cheek had a chance to win all the points only to drag his shot wide. The 21-year-old was a lively presence but that miss means that after nine league games Palace have failed to score in eight.

Yet it was understandable that Hodgson should compare this display to last Saturday’s win against Chelsea. Then, Palace played well and won, he said, here they played well and lost. “You don’t always get what you deserve,” Hodgson said. “I would have been more disappointed had the performance not been as good as I wanted it to be. But when you give a good performance, you always hope you are going to get your reward. On this occasion we didn’t.”

This was certainly an improvement on the previous away defeats – 4-0 at Manchester United and 5-0 at Manchester City – but it is now seven consecutive away defeats and the last Palace league goal on another ground was from Christian Benteke at Anfield in April.

Hodgson hopes to have the striker back soon, part of the reason he was able to restate his belief that the Eagles can stay up. “Why should I not believe that?” he said. “There are 29 games to go. We’ve beaten the champions and we’ve come to St James’ Park against a Newcastle side which is doing really well and we matched them.

“In my opinion we were the stronger team through large periods of the game. So why should I not have belief?

“I will stop believing when the number of points we are behind doesn’t match the number of games that are left. That is not going to happen in October. That could happen at some point in March, April at the earliest. There is a long way to go.”