86mins Albert Luque's excellent flag kick from the Strawberry corner was missed by Obafemi Martins and his marker leaving Steven Taylor to power in a header from the penalty spot. 

The defender celebrated his debut Toon goal in solo fashion, haring off along the Milburn Stand touchline, touching hands with Roeder before ending up punching the air somewhere down towards the away fans corner. A top effort indeed. 

Upon returning to the dressing room he was roundly abused by his delighted colleagues, who christened him "Forrest Gump" for his Run, Forrest, Run-type antics....2-1

Full time: Newcastle 2 Celta Vigo 1

Glenn Roeder said:

"It is very satisfying, especially beating a team of the calibre of Celta Vigo tonight.

"They have had some very good results recently, especially away from home. They have won at Real Madrid and Deportivo La Coruna recently.

"To fall behind to a team that is that good away from home and come back to win, it is a special victory for us. To have won all three games in the group is also very important to us.

"I understand that Fenerbahce, the team I was told was apparently the weakest in the group, beat Palermo 3-0 tonight, so perhaps they are not so weak."

"It was his first goal. I think he let everyone in the stadium know it was his first goal.

"I heard one or two shouts from the other players when I got back to the dressing room of 'Forrest Gump'. I was not sure what they meant.

"He certainly enjoyed it, and why not? Good luck to him."

The winning goalscorer added:

"No-one will ever be able to take that goal away from me.

"The lads can hammer me as much as they want for the celebration, but no-one can take that away from me.

"It was the best night of my life, and I couldn't help myself. There's no better feeling and hopefully it's the first of many.

"Once it went in, it was just the best feeling and I couldn't stop running. A lot of people were saying it was like Forrest Gump, but I'm not bothered. It was just on the spur of the moment, but I realised when I stopped running that I was absolutely shattered. It was a good job there were only three minutes left.

"I thanked Albert in the changing rooms after the game, I was too busy celebrating at the time. It was a great delivery from him.

"It was a great performance to qualify - and to score my first goal at the Gallowgate end made it even better.

"A lot of people underestimated us and thought we'd get battered at Palermo in the last game, but we proved them wrong and we got another good result against Celta Vigo.

"The lads didn't let their heads drop after going a goal down - it was important we kept going and we kept playing football. I thought we set about them really well.

"The season starts now and we know that Portsmouth will be tough on Sunday - but we got a great result against Arsenal, and I think as a team we're starting to play a lot better."

Peter Ramage commented:

"It was a great header from Tayls but we've had a bet for ages on who would get the first goal and unfortunately for me it was him.

"He celebrated with everybody else but his team-mates!

"But it was a good goal for him and I am pleased for him, it's just a pity about the celebrations.

"When I get my first goal, though, it will be a simple hand shake afterwards!"

"We've won three games out of three in what a lot of people deemed a tough group when the draw was first made.

"That is testament to the way the lads have performed really.

"I don't think we were favourites to go through because the teams we were drawn against have all been doing well in their respective leagues and they are difficult leagues.

"You look at Celta Vigo last night and this is a team that beat Real Madrid in their own backyard, so that underlines what a good win it was."

"We have proved recently that we can be resilient when we want to be by the way we have defended - at Man City, Arsenal and now against one of the top teams from Spain.

"In the UEFA Cup particularly we have done well and that is down to the coaching staff who have worked so hard with us.

"I think we defended superbly and Nobby Solano has come in at right-back and done well.

"He is a confident player and he showed his class which rubbed off on others.

"But the team did really well overall against Celta and we have to be pleased with our progress."

Celta coach Fernando Vasquez told pressmen: 

"It would not have been an unfair result if it had been a draw, but our original aim was to win and we did not achieve it.

"I am disappointed because we played well, but we lost because we did not defend two high balls into our box.

"Unfortunately, this season we have conceded 11 goals from that type of scenario, so we need to work on it. When we lost the corner late on I knew what was coming next.

"We have worked to improve it but at the moment we are not defending well and Newcastle took advantage of that."

"As far as the possibilities that now lie ahead for us we have enough ability to get through.

"All that we need is a win at home to Fenerbahce. We went to Newcastle to win and if we had have it would not be an unjust result. We played much in their half of the field in the first half.

"And in the second half we had more of the ball but we needed strength and Newcastle outfought us."

While Glenn Roeder publicly dismisses any talk of a curse on this club, our relentless battle with injuries must surely make him wonder just what is going on here as news broke ahead of this tie that Damien Duff was the latest in a string of players requiring surgical attention.   

However the Newcastle boss continues to experience good fortune in the quality and mood of the opposition that we are being pitted against, in what is his first ever foray into Europe as player or coach.

Having recently recorded victories at Real Madrid and Deportivo La Coruna, the visitors had selection issues of their own, with half a dozen players missing (De Ridder, Lucas, Lequi, Guayre, Garcia, Nunez) this trip to England.

However there remained enough talent within the Celta ranks to make a decent stab at earning the win that would propel them back into contention for qualification H with four points at the halfway stage in Group H.

Instead though they left Gallowgate having failed to add to their solitary point and thrown away an early lead that if it wasn't quite a gift, certainly wasn't wholly due to Galician craft and skill.

Ahead within ten minutes, Celta seemed uncertain what tactics to employ and despite our slow start to the game, we were level from the first decent chance that we devised - the Spaniards showed a similar reluctance to Villareal here in pre-season in dealing with aerial balls into their box.  

Back in August it had been the unlikely figure of Nicky Butt who twice headed home: here it was Sibierski adding to his cup scoring tally this season, followed by the moment that Steven Taylor has long dreamt-of. And had Bramble kept his thundering first half effort down, it could so easily have been a hat-trick of headers.

Scoring before the break was important for us from a psychological point of view and from the time that we drew level there seemed only one winner, as Celta failed to raise their game one iota. 

Speaking of unimpressive displays from Spaniards, mention just has to be made of the variable contribution from Luque this evening.

Planting a shot wide within thirty seconds of the first whistle was to sum up a night when one was never quite sure whether to praise or abuse him.

A second chance later in the half saw him make an absolute hash of an attempted volley, but he did show some presence of mind with an intuitive through ball for N'Zogbia and a well-executed dummy out on the left flank.

His second half return though consisted of taking the corner for the winner and for the most part, wandering aimlessly around, frustrating colleagues and crowd alike with an obvious lack of effort - clip-clopping across the field behind the play and failing to do the go part of "give and goes".

At least now though home fans have seen with their own eyes his zombie-like contribution, while channel 5 viewers got another slab of mediocrity to add to the Sicily non-performance. 

That has got to be better than relying on media and talk-in whispers of a bad attitude in training etc. and helps Roeder out when people question his reluctance to use his £10m man - the evidence was there for all to see. 

We could also make that direct comparison between the industrious Milner and out to lunch N'Zogbia - had we not already written that on numerous occasions this season. What the hell is wrong with him? Nobody has gone backwards further under Roeder than someone who looked on the verge of greatness, but currently is unwilling or unable to make any impression on games.

It was a shame that Solano was required to fill in at full back, as he didn't put a foot wrong all night and in a more advanced position could have found the time to unlock Celta earlier - and certainly give Martins something resembling a pass when he appeared in the closing stages. 

The manager did his bit to be positive by introducing Parker and Martins into the fray and will have been pleased by his side's determination to do the job properly, rewarding those who turned out by not settling for a point as Vigo looked to have.  

There are still plenty of things wrong with this side, but at least effort and determination and something approaching defiance are evident - and there's certainly been progress made since the post-match moaning of the last home game.

This competition remains resolutely low budget, with cheap as chips Channel5 coverage and pundits seemingly gathering their gen from passers by (Craig Ramage played for us tonight apparently). 

One almost wonders if we were to be drawn against Rangers whether the press would label it a "Battle of Little Britain" game....

However the victory means that Roeder has met the first of his seasonal goals - maintaining European involvement up to and beyond the mid-season transfer window.    

It's tempting to say that we've turned the corner after a week in which we've competed well against Arsenal and Celta Vigo. 

However until we start to collect three-point hauls in the Premiership and rise up the table we'll refrain from making such comments.

Hopefully Roeder and his players will behave similarly, minimising the egg-on-face potential of the "answered our critics" post-match statements that continue to blight these cup successes. 

Quite simply they haven't, although the outlook is starting to look slightly brighter - injuries notwithstanding. 

Biffa

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