United Manager Chris Hughton said:

"It is too early to be complacent. We may be eight points clear but we can’t take anything for granted. We have built up a decent gap at the top but you only have to lose a couple of games to see that lead whittled away. We have some very tough games coming up.

"The important thing is that we are unbeaten at home. We need to keep that going. Games hinge on certain things. This one was the penalty. Once we got that goal just before half-time and their goalkeeper was sent off things opened up for us.

"After that we showed a real desire to get more goals. Peter Lovenkrands had a good game and showed that he can score with his head."

Of Gutierrez and his goal:

"I don't know if it (the mask) was worth the wait, but it was a wonderful goal. For us, the most important thing is his overall contribution and we can't fault that. He was excellent today, a player playing with real confidence.

"As a player, can he add more goals to his game? Yes, I think he can, but the most important thing is if he keeps giving us contributions like that, we will certainly be happy with that.

"I signed Peter because he could play in three places, left-wing, right-wing and up front. But he always said striker was his best position."

Peter Lovenkrands commented on the penalty:

"The goalkeeper never touched me, but he came out high, I tried to avoid him but couldn’t take another step and so he still kind of brought me down. It was a penalty, although the red card was harsh.”

Dicky Bird, Darren Gough, Michael Parkinson, Trelford Mills, Kes - your boys got a hell of a beating. Well for forty six minutes they did, anyway.

Having netted twelve times in their last trio of home games, Newcastle belatedly maintained their recent scoring run at SJP with half a dozen strikes against the Tykes. However it took the intervention of referee Grant Hedley to get the party started just before the interval.

Peter Lovenkrands had been denied an early opener by an offside flag, while Andy Carroll headed narrowly wide when well-placed and was then out-jumped on the goal line. The Dane's tumble in the box then saw a penalty awarded and visiting 'keeper Luke Steele depart, after a passable Tasmanian Devil impression. 

And from that point, the routes through the Barnsley defence were many and various, even with the trickster Routledge absent once again through injury and Jose Enrique returning from a seven match layoff but lasting barely half an hour before limping off. His removal though did allow Tamas Kadar to appear at left back and he couldn't have wished for a better opportunity in restating his case as a first teamer. 

Jonas Gutierrez and Pancrate had switched wings in the first half as they sought to break through a stoic Tykes defence, but they were both afforded the freedom of the park after the break. Similarly, Danny Guthrie delighted statisticians again by managing to secure a central midfield slot in the absence of the injured Alan Smith and playing no small part in another goal-laden game.

Such was the lateness of the opening goal in the first half that it wasn't immediately apparent what effect going down to ten men would have on the visitors for the rest of the game. 

Whatever words of wisdom came from Mark Robins in the away dressing room though didn't have much longevity, as his side conceded almost straight from the restart, five more Magpie goals going past sub 'keeper David Preece in a 24 minute period - did anyone mention that he's a native of wearside and began his career at the dark place? 

In the end it could have more; Lovenkrands striking the post as he attempted to complete his hat trick and Ryan Taylor volleying Pancrate's pullback wide in the last minute, as he looked to come off the bench and score for the third successive home game.

As it was though, the visitors had the final say with a goal of their own, that owed much to some dozy defending. That spoilt the symmetry of emulating our 6-0 win over Barnsley here back in the last promotion season of 1993, while our half dozen matched the six put past Everton here in 2002 - not quite enough for the biggest win of the century that Sky mysteriously claimed.

Echoes of the 5-1 victory over Brentford on this same day 17 years ago were strong (and that game would have matched this score, had Rob Lee's outrageous long-range strike not been tragically excluded). 

On that day, almost everything we touched turned to gold but we also led only 1-0 at the break. The previous week had seen us triumph at Tranmere, ending a six game winless run in the league that culminated in much Gallowgate grumbling when Malcolm Allison's Bristol Rovers side held us 0-0 at SJP. 

A broad brush approach to history does tend to see those less memorable weeks of 1992/93 forgotten about - something to bear in mind when reading recent comments from players of that era -  it wasn't a totally effortless stroll into the Premier League and some players did get lost en route, notably David Kelly.

Back to 2010 though and to cap a grand day, news filtered through from Shepherds Bush that our old pal Neil Warnock had worked his magic on QPR and got off to a winning start against West Brom - having previously beaten the Baggies this season when Palace boss. The feeling of a significant step forward was tangible.

As the team seem to exhibit renewed confidence - and our move to odds-on status at the bookies coincides with an increasingly upbeat mood among fans post-Watford - so the powers-that-be are becoming increasingly emboldened.

Coinciding with his son's film release (The Shouting Men) Derek Llambias spoke to Sky at the London premiere and then gave an interview to the BBC in Newcastle, going on reiterate and expand on many of the points in his programme column for this game. Progress at least, in that he felt confident to put his name to quotes - rather than clumsily leak them out as he had done just days earlier.

And in a sense, what he says is unarguable. There's no big money to spend, the finances are improving, there's no credible bidder for the club in sight and football needs to put its house in order. Notwithstanding the difficulty of validating the financial claims, the rest of it is believable - and would perhaps be more acceptable coming from a different talking head. Part of the problem remains the medium, not the message.

A less credible policy of attacking supporters though is also there - the vocal discontent is naturally eroding over time and it seems slightly counter-productive to ask now for people to forgive, forget and keep quiet. Just get on with it - and don't seek to be loved or even accepted. Tolerated may be top whack - in the absence of any alternative. After all, we're all insular, provincial idiots aren't we? 

Too much has gone on here in the last couple of years - ludicrous appointments, the court case and associated bare-faced lies, take your pick. This season remains a catch-up exercise, with our ultimate aim of being back on the grid in the big race next time round now getting closer. 

That's still not quite where we were when John Hall took the money and ran - we were 13th to be precise, after a UEFA campaign and with the likes of James Milner in the squad. Three years on, that would take us into open top bus territory. In 2007 we sacked the manager.

While the players may deserve their moment of drenching each other in cheap bubbly and waving "Going Up" beach towels, any celebrations would surely be muted after that initial relief - unless collective amnesia really has spread across the region and beyond. The time for self-congratulation and shouting the odds is over a year away at least, if at all. And God forbid that Del Boy & Co are tempted to join in the back-slapping on the field. Not even Sky would be able to spin that one into something positive....  

Biffa