We're class . It's official !

[bathstokie]

I don't get to attend many games as I live in the SW but we are a thousand times better than we were against Bristol City last season and we've got to start to combat the label which the press and (jealous) fans from other clubs are trying to load on us. We still have a long way to go to make sure we stay up, but we are now starting to show flair and class for longer periods of the game and it's being noticed :-

"On Saturday they were principally undone by Ricardo Fuller. The striker's introduction and swift reduction of Fabricio Coloccini to a nervous wreck infused Newcastle with an increasing self-doubt. Fuller easily evaded Coloccini to conjure Mamady Sidibe's goal and had established himself as the best player on view when Riley ruled that Sébastien Bassong had shoved him. Cue a flicked-on Glenn Whelan free-kick and Faye's leveller.

It was all so very different from the last time Stoke were in town for an FA Cup third-round replay defeat on the January night that Keegan made the most evocative of managerial returns to St James' Park. Eleven months on, that evening's optimism has long since evaporated to be replaced by mundane worries about Newcastle's lack of central midfield options and Owen's increasingly uncertain future.

Stoke took full advantage, looking the classier side once they started moderating their reliance on long and dead balls. With Rory Delap and Amdy Faye making way for the more subtle Fuller and Michael Tonge, Tony Pulis's side began out-passing Kinnear's with Danny Pugh also impressing. "Michael Owen might be going on a free transfer soon," Pulis mused. "We can't afford his wages but I do think a lot of other people will be very interested."

Tyneside's midwinter threatens to be particularly bleak.

Man of the match: Ricardo Fuller (Stoke)" Today's Guardian

Oh ye of little faith start to believe !

[crimesy]

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