Their goal was the end result of some sloppy defending by Williamson and Colo, but otherwise they offered little in the way of a threat.

We upped our game in the 2nd half, but despite a lot of good possession just couldn’t find the target. A Williamson header hit the angle and went out and, Shola blazed high and wide when wide open on the edge of the PA and with plenty of time.

It was looking as though Blackburn would hold out when HBA took possession around 35yds out. His mazy run and thunderous strike was truly Maradona-esque. Fabulous goal. His overall performance was a bit in and out, and he looked more comfortable after going out wide when Obertan was mercifully taken off. He seemed to benefit from that bit extra time he got in the wide position.

Jonas had a good 2nd half, as his developing partnership with Santon caused Blackburn all kinds of problems, and the winning goal was well created by Shola and beautifully taken by the Spiderman.

Abeid did ok on his debut and certainly didn’t look overawed. He could prove to be another good ‘un.

Without playing well, Shola improved things up front simply by getting in and around the box. Best needs to recognise that he is now expected to be the main man, and he needs to concentrate on getting on the end of things rather than getting involved in the build-up. We dominated posssession yesterday without offering a consistent threat, and this has to be a real concern over the next few weeks.

Not a classic but at least we’re in the hat.

Last year we were beaten heavily with 4 goals, and it looks like the Potters fans are very confidence that the same result will repeated again last night, but they have witnessed the all brand new Newcastle Undefeated Football Club, as the final result was their worst Halloween ever at their own yard.

United visit the Britannia on a quest to conquer the third spot on the Premiership table from Chelsea who got thrashed last Saturday by Arsenal. Frankly I would be happy with a point there, as it will guarantee us the third spot.

United were playing without Tiote who has an injury problem and Pardew give a chance for Guthrie to take his position, and he’s more than adequately to handle his tasks in our central midfield.

Man of the match is (our future #9) Demba Ba who scores a hattrick. With his performance last night, Stoke manager Tony Pulis was wondering why he’s not one of their player in first place.

Ba took United to the lead after just 11 minutes through United’s swift direct attack. Tim Krul send the ball out and being flicked on by Leon Best to the position of Obertan who sprint the ball and leaving Marc Wilson trailing in before clipping a delightful cross to Ba, to score his first goal of the match.

United then soon become under a heavy pressure from the Potters, but we held them firmly with Coloccini and Steven Taylor commanding the area. And as much as they give us the tests, we simply responded once we had the chance to hitting them back on the counter.

Newcastle’s counter attack producing Ba’s second when Coloccini’s angling ball fell into the box for Upson to try to headed it out. The ball was only goes as far as Leon Best who return it low back into the six-yard box where Ba is waiting to finish it with a verocious strike.

The home side could only response with a goal from penalty when Peter ‘always diving in the six-yard box’ Crouch react to Ba’s soft touch. Jonathan Walter gave the Potters a false hope to save their game.

But, soon after Crouch tumbling down heavily like was being hit by a male elephant, United have another reward from the referee and in a similar situation as Huth nudged Best inside the box. Ba made no mistake, as he scores his third.

That’s it, the mission accomplished, third in premiership as the reward of the lads hard work and never-end fighting spirit so far this season. I must say that I have started to believe in Alan Pardew now, as we are walking in his wonderland.

Ba then hit the post when he made a decent chance for himself. He spent all the first half playing up front on his own. I assume Ben Arfa was supposed to be the support player but was never near enough to Ba to take advantage when the big man won the ball. In fact Ben Arfa was woeful tonight so I hope that was a blip.

Davide Santon started at left back and showed a willingness to get forward but something of a relucatance to get back and cover when he’d lost the ball – which he did regularly. He seemed to lack strength and was knocked off the abll far too easily. He moved to right back later on but to be honest, I was far from impressed on this showing.

A word at this stage about the referee. He was shite. For a start, he is very inexperienced at this level. I saw him make a far few cock ups in a League 2 game 10 days ago so I had an idea what to expect.

Blackburn’s second goal was a result of his total incompetence. Ba broke into the box and was hauled over by Samba. Everyone in the ground could see this was a pen – expect the ref who waved play on. Blackburn cleared the ball forward and proceeded to win their own penalty – probably was but that’s not the point.

It should have been 1-1 and instead we found ourselves two down. Ba spent the time during which they were preparing to take the pen remonstrating with the liner and fourth official – in this he was supported by Pardew!

I thought there was a fair chance that Pardew was going to deck one of the officials he was getting so upset at what was going on. In the first half a free kick was given against Colo when the ball was hit against his hand from about a yard. When a Blackburn defender handled in the box when the ball hit his hand from about three yards – no pen. When anothere free kick was given outside the area for a third such offence Pardew nearly blew a gasket.

We were a bit better in the second half without really troubling their keeper too much. We seemed to lack urgency and never got behind them down the flanks until late on. Marveaux didn’t see a lot of the ball in decent positions and Jonas had two men on him every time he was in possession.

Then came added time. We were chucking men forward without getting much joy then Guthrie popped a great shot in from about 30 yards. He’d had a rather mixed night – he lacks real creativity and isn’t as effective defensively as Tiote. Good goal though but. It was only when that goal went in that I realised we were far from the only Newcastle fans in the Jack Walker Stand!

There were still two minutes of the added five (mainly due to their time wasting) but I never expected what happened next! In the fifth minutes of added time we got a free kick about 25 yards out. Mr J said “he’ll have to shoot cos the ref is gonner blow”. So Cabaye shot – and it went in!! Last kick of the 90 apart from the kick off when the ref blew his whistle straight away. Amazing.

So extra time started with us on a high and them looking fed up. We were pressing more but they got a free kick about 25-30 yards out. Morten Gamst Pedersen shot, it took a wicked deflecttion and went in the bottom corner. So we just kept attacking and Lovely pants was pulled over as he was about to shoot. Ref never saw it of course and ended up giving a corner but the liner was signalling for a penalty. Lovely pants put it away with ease.

At this point, the Toon fans in the Jack Walker were on their feet cheering the goal and some sad git behind me went and complained to a steward saying he should throw them out. The steward basically told him to bog off!

Sadly, the heroics at Forest weren’t to be repeated. They got a free kick which Pedersen chipped to the far post when Samba won his header and Givet nodded in. Now I can only think the liner thought Givet had come from behind the ball because if he hadn’t he was well offside there being none of our players withing a country mile of him.

Colo nodded one over the bar in the dying seconds but that was that. Shame really. Man of the Match?? The 5,000 Toon fans who made up half the crowd and sang all night.

The Latics match was also the first live game that my son ever saw. He has been asking me to come with me couple of times before, but last night I finally took him out to watch the Toon game. Although it’s makes him to sleep way very late but he seems to really enjoy it and happy with the result.

Meanwhile at St. James’ Park, three of the Indonesian Toon Army members are finally can shown our flag inside the fortress, good one lads!

Back to the game, Alan Pardew insists to keep his winning team against the bottom table Latics, I couldn’t blame him but it would be good if we put couple of fresh legas from the start, to give a taste of experience for the more tough cahllenge next month against the three teams above us.

I can see a glimpse of tireness in some of our players, and noticed that many of our attack was come from our right side. Obertan has a torrid game also, and many has critized his final ball last night.

But, history tells that it’s always difficult to play against them home and away. From our last two meetings with them at St. James’ Park in 2008/2009 and 2010/2011 seasons, all ends with 2-2 draw.

Yesterday match was another quiet game for Leon Best, especially with surprisingly the visitors took control of the game in the start of 20 minutes of the first half. They marched with 5 goal attempts and 4 shoots on goal compared to none from us.

They make our strikers to come down too deep in our midfield to pick the ball, with Hugo Rodallega constantly to be their main threats in our defense. Rodallega had a first minute shot blocked by Fabricio Coloccini and followed by another rising shot couple minutes later which was superbly tipped away by Tim Krul.

In the second half, things are not getting better before Alan Pardew quickly decide to bringing in Sylvain Marveaux and Ben Arfa to replace Leon Best and Obertan. We are starting to gain more control of the game and in ball possession.

A special note for Ben 10 performance last night, he seems to have little fear to fight for the ball after returning from his long broken leg injury. Although I can still see his magic movement, Ben Arfa still a little less below his peak performance.

Within the last 20 minutes, Pardew finally introduced Shola Ameobi who scores against Spurs last week. His appearance change the game again, and the visitors start to tightened up their defense looking for their first away point.

The deadlock finally broken in the 81st minute, starting with Ryan Taylor’s cross who was controlled by Marveaux before he served the ball for Cabaye to curl an unstoppable shot into Al Habsi top corner.

Newcastle United (4-4-2):
Tim Krul; Danny Simpson, Steven Taylor, Fabricio Coloccini (c), Ryan Taylor; Gabriel Obertan (Sylvain Marveaux 76), Yohan Cabaye, Cheik Tiote, Jonas Gutierrez; Leon Best (Hatem Ben Arfa 46), Demba Ba (Shola Ameobi 68)

Subs not used: Steve Harper, Davide Santon, James Perch, Alan Smith

Wigan Athletic (4-1-4-1):
Ali Al Habsi; Emmerson Boyce, Antolin Alcaraz, Gary Caldwell (c), Maynor Figueroa; Ben Watson (James McArthur 82); Albert Crusat (Conor Sammon 81), Mohamed Diame, David Jones, Victor Moses; Hugo Rodallega

Subs not used: Mike Pollitt, Adrian Lopez, Hendry Thomas, Shaun Maloney, Jordi Gomez

Referee: Neil Swarbrick

Attendance: 48,321

Alan Pardew told Ba to drop deeper to assist, but as v Spurs last week he showed he is incapable of doing that effectively. At half time Pardew took off Best and replaced him with Hatem Ben Arfa in a further effort solve this problem.

While not entirely successful, this did improve matters as one of Wigan’s midfield three had to pick up Ben Arfa as he was playing deep, giving Cabaye & Tiote a little more time and space. He is still rather off the pace, and gave the ball away too often, but his presence was a threat that Wigan couldn’t ignore.

Despite getting more of a grip in midfield, we still weren’t creating clearcut chances and Wigan’s defenders were dominating Ba, now playing up front on his own. So, Shola was brought on for Ba.

Unfortunately, this Shola was ‘regular Shola’ rather than the ‘super-Shola’ that came on last week. Nevertheless, he was more of a physical threat than Ba had been.

Pardew’s final move was to mercifully replace Obertan with Marveaux. The former’s confidence visibly drained away today as he turned over possession time and time again, and he was starting to get stick from the crowd.

Marveaux showed some nice touches, linking well with Ben Arfa and Cabaye, and played the ball square for Cabaye to strike a gem from the edge of the area into the far top corner.

Not a great performance, but not a bad one either imho. Wigan deserve a lot of credit, and were certainly the better team in the 1st half. They worked hard to stop us playing if rather over-physically at times.

I thought Pardew’s changes were well thought out and each one brought about improvements. However, it seems to me we’ve reached the point where some reassessment is needed.

Two big strikers and only two in central midfield will not always work in the Premier League. Cabaye & Tiote are bearing too much of the workload in this formation and will eventually run out of steam (or get injured).

Krul made one excellent save early on, and was then largely unemployed. I don’t know what Alan Pardew said to Simpson at the break, but he had a barn-storming 2nd half. Top man for me once again was Colo, although Steven Taylor also did well.