Quality cameo which will lift Newcastle United after best performance of season so far

We got pretty much everything you ask for from a Newcastle United side in the 3-1 win over Everton.

In fact it was probably the performance of the season in terms of what we saw from the first minute to the last.

They started on the front-foot, there was intent there and the whole team pressed brilliantly.

OK, they went behind but that was against the run of play in terms of how the game had started.

But they showed great character and when you are at the bottom not many teams can do that when they go a goal down.

Newcastle managed it well though against Everton.

And I think the January business gave both the crowd and the current crop of players the belief that they could go on and win.

They got the result that they thoroughly deserved.

Climbing out of the relegation zone is crucially important at this time of year, not least because of the psychological boost for the players.

Newcastle briefly slipped into the bottom three again when one of my old teams Norwich went 1-0 up against Crystal Palace but by the end you couldn't argue with things.

United went back up to 17th because of the Palace equaliser and they still have a game in hand over the Canaries.

I am hoping that moving forward we aren't relying on the results of others and I do think the Everton game can be the start of better things to come.

It backed up the performance at Elland Road and the players have come back from the trip to Saudi Arabia in good spirits.

You could see that just by the way Newcastle did not let their heads go down when going behind against Everton this week.

There seems to have been a mentality shift.

It always helps when other teams don't win or pick up maximum points but if you look after yourself then you don't need to worry about