Newcastle 3-0 Wolves

&c

Newcastle's frankly ridiculous form continued on Wednesday night with what looks on paper like a routine win over struggling Wolves.

And while Newcastle were ultimately good value for the win overall, that doesn't quite tell the whole story, as we contrived to concede opportunity after opportunity to Wolves in the latter stages.

Thankfully by that stage we were three goals to the good, Arsenal loanee (I think that's right?) Alex Isak bagging another brace and Gordon sweeping home an Isak assist.

The first goal took a fortunate deflection to wrong-foot Jose Sa, but it was heartening, and illustrative of our newfound confidence, that after half an hour of being the better team without scoring we didn't run out of ideas.

That was primarily thanks to Isak taking matters into his own hands, drifting in and out of both channels and various pockets of space seemingly of his own making, and not being afraid to shoot.

The second goal came as the hour approached and was a thing of beauty and mild incredulity, Bruno slipping a gorgeously disguised pass (beauty) into Isak who was stood in the middle of the box with no defender within five yards of him (mild incredulity).

The Swede turned with a touch and passed the ball into the net with a nonchalant efficiency hitherto unknown around these parts.

And he was at it again with 15 to go, haring down the right (and, to my surprise, surviving a VAR offside check), twisting the blood of a couple of defenders and cleverly squaring the ball to Gordon, who again had far too easily manufactured space for himself in the box.

This was the cue for a triple change as the forward trio of Murphy, Isak and Gordon were all given a rest, replaced by Willock, Osula and Almiron.

None had an impact but Miggy once again underlined why we should be snapping Atlanta's hand off for whatever it is they're offering (variously reported as either £6m or £12m).

Nothing personal - he was the hardest worker throughout the Ashley era, but he doesn't have the skills at this level.

It was a Wolves substitute who by this point was threatening to poke a hole in the perfect night, gep thief Cunha introduced at half time and causing all sorts of problems - though never quite able to get the beating of the colossal (again) Botman.

We did allow Wolves to get a lot of shots away, and they had the ball in the net with 10 minutes to go, only to see it harshly (but technically correctly) ruled out for handball, scorer Bueno inadvertently handling from a corner before bundling in.

Seconds later and Dubravka made an incredible save to deny Strand Larsen, strengthening the case for keeping him until the end of the season.

There were further chances for Wolves but none taken, Tonali in particularly running full pelt both up and down the pitch to see out the ninth consecutive victory that took us into fourth place, three points behind third place Forest (and, channelling my inner Shearer, only 10 off Liverpool at the top of the pile).

Logic and natural Toon pessimism dictates that this run must come to an end sooner rather than later, and Bournemouth at home on Saturday will probably require a more solid performance than we gave today.

But at the same time, after nine wins on the bounce, why should we fear facing anybody?.