The run continues. Just weeks after the bottom three looked like it was going to become an awfully familiar place for Newcastle fans, the Magpies are up to 8th in the Premier League having won four in a row (and five in all competitions). Dark clouds are lifting, and fans are able to celebrate while inevitably navigating the frankly ridiculous accusations that they are either fickle or unreasonable about their expectations (thanks Mr Bellamy) for wanting to win. Some will say faith in Alan Pardew is paying off, that he was always going to come good, but the reality is that the manager has changed the way the team played, invested trust in youth and built a solid foundation that wasn't there for most of the first 7 games of the season. And thanks to the brilliance of Ayoze Perez, and a stunning cross from Daryl Janmaat, the manager will enjoy the adulation of the press once more. But that's not to say the manager doesn't deserve credit: he absolutely does for the discipline he was instilled in his team and the tactics he's rigidly now sticking to, and while suggestions he's as good as Van Gaal might be hard to take, he's certainly doing enough to justify praise. Newcastle fully deserved their victory against West Brom - a "professional away performance" in the words of Sky, and here's how Pardew's men master-minded it...
