A very rare occurrence for us in the last few years; results around us did us a big favour coming into this match and the opportunity was capitalised on. Three vital points opening up a little bit of breathing room at the bottom of the table. Take a moment to breath in that oxygen. Sweet isn’t it?

The single goal that yielded three points came courtesy of James Collins’ shiny dome 25 minutes in, flicking on a superb free kick from Ashley Young. Darren Bent had a perfectly good goal chalked off incorrectly for offside right before the end of the half, the fear that that would come back to bite us lived throughout the second 45 minutes.

Bent had a penalty shout turned away amid several incorrect decisions during a second half completely bossed by the home side, cheered on superbly through much of the game by the home crowd. Well done to The 12th Man!

‘Tense’ doesn’t begin to describe the final minutes, including no less than five minutes of injury time, but Newcastle’s late charge wasn’t enough to rescue anything. And they wouldn’t have deserved it either.

Magnificent performance today. No question of effort or desire from a single player. Job done, that’s all there is to it.

That’s all for now, I currently have the heart rate of a lab rat and need to find some way to recover. Looking at the latest table might help…