Goals from Peter Lovenkrands and Leon Best was enough for Newcastle to take the full quota of points from the game with Birmingham City at St Andrews on Tuesday night.
Newcastle had quite a comfortable ride through this one as the Blues looked out of sorts and in the end it could have been a worse scoreline.
Things didn`t start very well for the home side and they were a goal down in two minutes, City let Enrique a second chance to get in a cross to the near post and Lovenkrands was on hand to poke home and stun the home crowd.
With going ahead so early you`d have thought that Newcastle would have pressed for a second straight away to try and kill the game off, but it was Birmingham who looked most likely to find the net although conditions made sure that chances were at a premium.
Zigic thought he had found the equaliser when he turned and fired at goal but Steve Harper was equal to the effort and tipped the ball onto the post. And when a chance fell to Gardner, he could do no better than fire high over the target when you would have expected better.
But any hopes the home side had of getting back into this contest were taken away after the half time break when Gutierrez got in an excellent cross and Best rose to put the ball past Foster for 2-0.
The momentum was now with the visitors and they could have had a third when Tiote got in a shot that saw Foster doing well to save.
At the other end all Blues had to offer was a shot over the bar from Zigic and a header from Johnson going straight to the grateful Newcastle keeper.
Blues: Ben Foster, Stephen Carr, Roger Johnson, Liam Ridgewell, Seb Larsson (Kevin Phillips, 76), Craig Gardner, David Bentley, Obafemi Martins (Cameron Jerome, 57), Nikola Zigic, Martin Jiranek (David Murphy, 73).
Subs not used: Lee Bowyer, Colin Doyle, Keith Fahey, Jean Beausejour.
Newcastle: Stephen Harper, Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Kevin Nolan, Mike Williamson, Joey Barton, Peter Lovenkrands (Nile Ranger, 64), Danny Simpson, Jonas Gutierrez (Sol Campbell, 87), Leon Best (Danny Guthrie, 75), Cheik Tiote.
Subs not used: Sol Campbell, James Perch, Tim Krul, Shane Ferguson, Shefki Kuqi.
Referee: Mark Halsey
Attendance: 28, 270
JOIN US ON…
FOLLOW ON…
