Laurent Robert marked his fiftieth start in all competitions for Newcastle with his eleventh strike. That compares well to a certain Monsieur Ginola, who left with a stat of 70 starts for 7 goals.

There was no goal today for Alan Shearer though, and he remains on 99 Premiership strikes for Newcastle.

Three goals in a week (if you count his Ewood OG) for Andy Griffin, who emulated the feat of John Beresford in 1997/98 by scoring at the Leazes end in a Champions league game (against Croatia Zagreb) and then repeating it  at the same end of the ground in the following home game.

That's now three NUFC goals in total for Andy, his only other one a shot against Arsenal at the Gallowgate End in April 2000.

Today's goal also took him past his Stoke tally of two goals, with the Juventus goal being his first for either side in a Cup competition. 

A Golden Autumn Day as Van Morrison would have termed it, and some typical autumnal Tyneside street scenes could be glimpsed on the way to the ground.

Surly, spotty, youths clad in Rockport boots jostled for position in the queue outside a firework shop while a short distance away foul-mouthed pre-school urchins demanded a "penny for the f***ing guy".

Welcome to the City of culture.

Meanwhile in the shopping thoroughfares tinsel and spray snow has appeared in shop windows - a sure sign that Easter is on the way. 

Game two of our five match residence at the mansion on the hill, and for the second successive performance our leading man was Andy Griffin.

Charlton threatened to become the villain as our back two did a brief impression of a pantomime horse, but that acted as a wake up call and served only to sharpen what was threatening to become a slightly languid and dawdling home performance.

With both Bellamy and LuaLua sidelined (the former with mystifying knee pains, the latter also injured despite turd-stirring use of archive interviews by the papers to give the impression of a dispute), Ameobi partnered Shearer.

Having been amongst his sterner critics it's only just that we give him some credit for his display today, which included a crucial touch for a goal, well-executed shimmy and shot that brought the best out of keeper Kiely and some other positive touches. In short he was more involved than usual and while not exactly tuning in to the Shearer wavelength showed signs of getting to grips with the demands of top-class football.  

Or maybe it's because his new kid on the block status was threatened by the first appearance of Chopra on the subs bench, the prolific youngster spending much of the game warming up. 

Having said that though, this was Shola's 18th Premiership start and 59th senior outing in all competitions and he needs to be showing something by now to the sceptics among us. 

He may give us something, but he doesn't give us goals - having already tried to use that line with Cort, sympathetic coaches and management cannot really trot it out again for Shola, otherwise the full backs are going to have to score every week once Shearer takes his final bow.

Speaking of goals, Robert kept up his record of either scoring or being involved in the creation of most of ours, with a cross for Speed that saw the Welshman defied by the woodwork and then the winner scored by himself.

As ever critics and watchers alike are divided by the lad - some papers raved about his contribution while others barely mentioned his name. To see him back in goalscoring form is reassuring, as are the gradually more consistent crosses he sends over, especially as on the opposite side of the field that delivery is missing from Solano at present. 

Note use of the word 'opposite' rather than naming the flanks - once again in this game the Frenchman and Peruvian switched wings at various points, which did look to confuse the visitors.

As well as that, the confidence factor from scoring cannot be underestimated, even for the likes of Robert. His first goal in thirteen matches (his previous longest drought lasting eight games) looked to have put a smile back on his face, while who's to say that Griffin would have been bold enough to shoot had he not seen his effort on Wednesday end up in the Juventus net?

He should also have sealed the victory with a close-range header, but thankfully it didn't matter although we once again had the traditional closing moments of panic as Charlton made vague patterns in front of Given.

Shearer was prominent at the back once more when danger loomed, and although today proved not to be the setting for his century-making feat, he maintained his recent high standards of all-round play to the benefit of all of his colleagues. And I'll gladly wait until the smoggies appear in these parts for him to notch yet another against them, or extend the frown on Arsene Wenger's brow for the second successive season the week after.

The Addicks may lack a little in flair, but are certainly better organised than the other sides from the lower reaches of the league we've seen this season. Goalscoring looks to be a problem, but it will be interesting to see our respective positions and progress by March, when we attempted to win at the Valley for the first time since Waddle, McDermott & Beardsley did the trick in 1984.

For us we once again defied football logic and emerged successfully from a post-Champions league game. The likes of Viana and Chopra do look destined to be involved sooner rather than later, and the evolution of the team is underway with Bramble and Jenas looking increasingly assured and worth their places.

At the end of a week that began with the Blackburn mess, we appear to have made sizeable headway in results and team selection, even if one or two parts of the machine are still not quite working in synch. 

Certainly we can await the arrival of Kiev with well-placed confidence that we can improve on the miserable disjointed showing we endured in the Ukraine.