Ruud Gullit said:
 
"We are going in the right direction. The players are responding well to what we want to do here. I think sometimes they don't believe how good they can play."

Walter Smith:

To follow
 

The Times match report:

Momentum is the hardest thing to gain in football and the easiest to lose. With a mistimed pass or careless lunge, the efforts of a club can quickly be forsaken, a comeback forgotten, a recovery shelved. For Everton, the moment that their season became wholly trained to avoiding relegation arrived with the dreadful clarity of a deflected shot and the horror of a needless free kick.

By straining to reach a speculative effort from Temuri Ketsbaia, Marco Materazzi unwittingly initiated Newcastle United's first goal, diverting the course of the ball with significant effect. By felling Alan Shearer on the fringes of the penalty area, Don Hutchison provoked a second. Two-one down and with Ruud Gullit's stilted revival escalating, Everton retreated to familiar, sapping territory.

While there was much more to come, Hutchison's intervention definitively altered the course of the game. Where, for gaping intervals at the beginning of each half, Everton had dictated its pace and shape, the impetus was now lost. Three Newcastle goals in the space of 20 minutes spoke of a dominance that they only latterly earned.

Suddenly, they are beginning to resemble a team. In Shay Given, Steve Howey, Dietmar Hamann and Shearer, Newcastle possess a backbone finally delivering the weight that it promises. The disharmony evident in the days around Christmas has been dispelled by positive results and now, where before they seemed flimsy and unimportant, their squad players are capable of injecting vigour.

The redoubtable Ketsbaia, the former Georgia international, whose future on Tyneside is far from certain, was their hero yesterday. If he remains in the team until the end of the season, he will still fall some way short of figuring in 75 per cent of Newcastle's matches – the minimum required for the renewal of his work permit – and yet he played with a fierce, indelible hunger.

"I would like him to stay, of course," Gullit, the Newcastle manager, said, "but there is good competition for places now and Ketsbaia, because of the new regime, is showing his best form." His first goal may have been blessed with a healthy slice of good fortune, but the same could not be said for either his second or Newcastle's fourth, which he created for his side's official new captain, Shearer.

Walter Smith, an empty, haunted figure afterwards, insisted that Newcastle were flattered by the scoreline and, in a sense, the Everton manager was right. For the first 15 minutes of both halves, Everton were worthy combatants, but they crumbled badly.

As the rain teemed down from a sky as leaden as the stretch of muck that barely passed muster as a pitch – two inspections eventually permitting the tie to proceed – Everton's players, showered and changed, trudged along the fringes of St James' Park to their coach. It was a poignant end to a vibrant afternoon, coming in stark comparison to the first little teaser which arrived with the team-sheets.

Since signing from Croatia Zagreb last month, the introduction of Silvio Maric to English football has waited on the vagaries of a work permit, international clearance and the postponement of a reserve team match, although, after a trip to the races, a paint-balling excursion and the grand tour of Tyneside's finest fashion houses, his acclimatisation was already fairly complete.

All that remained was to exchange the black and white shirt that Maric had been sporting while awaiting the completion of his £3.65M transfer for the real thing and, perhaps a touch surprisingly, that happened yesterday. The surface was too treacherous, Gullit had said, a lack of match fitness palpable, yet there he was jogging on to the field, taking his place on the left side of midfield.

Though Hamann had been the first to threaten with a speculative 20-yard punt that dipped markedly above the crossbar, Newcastle were sluggish in leaving the blocks. There were some pretty touches in the central portion of the field, particularly from Maric, but, for long periods, the swirling, miserable conditions clearly favoured Everton's pragmatic tendencies.

The first goal by Ketsbaia altered that, draining Everton of control and self-confidence until the whistle for half-time cleared the distraction. From a flurry of quick passes involving Maric and Shearer, Ketsbaia emerged with the ball on the fringes of the penalty area. At that stage, a shot had appeared to be the least obvious option, but the frame of Materazzi, hurled towards the danger, shaped glory from ignominy.

It stopped the game in its tracks. Half-time brought a renewal of efforts and, from Everton, an influential tactical change. Don Hutchison, back from suspension, was pushed forward alongside Cadamarteri and Jeffers and the complexion changed. Hutchison nicked the ball from Steve Howey, flicked it forward and, from a considerable distance, David Unsworth left Shay Given sprawling. Within another five minutes, Newcastle were ahead once more.

From Hutchison's rudimentary foul, Thomas Myhre, the goalkeeper, could only parry Hamann's shot into the path of Materazzi. The Italian centre half could do little other than watch the ball spin from his leg as George Georgiadis, a substitute, turned it home.

In the 72nd minute, Georgiadis found Ketsbaia with a square pass along the perimeter of the area. He stepped outside Unsworth and shot beyond Myhre and, eight minutes from time, Shearer converted a move he had begun. A combination of one-touch passes culminated with a low, firm shot that struck right at the heart of Everton's season.

Biffa