Since we last spoke it's been a topsy turvy January. Beginning with a tremendous win over Man Utd, moving on to a tricky FA Cup tie with the best goal I have ever seen live from the enigma that is Ben Arfa, a hard fought win over QPR that saw Cabaye almost get decapitated, an insane second half performance against Fulham which saw London's 13th team turn us over by 5 goals to 2, a dreadful FA Cup performance against Brighton that saw Cabaye get decapitated throughout the game again - and came out of it with a three game ban. And breathe.

February started off much in the same way January did, with a crucial win. The performances were miles apart granted, but you get three points when you win whether you hammer the opposition or scrape a result. We spent much of the Blackburn game with our backs against the wall, and a combination of poor finishing and decent defending/goalkeeping kept Rovers at bay. Junior Hoillet continued to work his way up my chart of players I shake my fist at following an Oscar worthy swallow dive that turned the usually calm and composed Ryan Taylor into Tony Soprano as he was stopped from thumping him by 11 Newcastle players and 3,000 fans. A player dives, an opposition player shows his anger at the dive, and who gets booked? Yep...you guessed it. I await the FA to study the video evidence, although not holding my breath.

Our first goal came in somewhat fortunate circumstances. A Ryan Taylor effort that was hit more in hope than anything took a deflection off Scott Dann before bouncing into an empty net. It'll do me, and nice to get some form of retribution for Willo's deflected own goal at the weekend. From there, we were pegged back by Blackburn. They were awarded a somewhat fortunate penalty which I believe was given for Simpson daring to attempt a challenge on Modeste - the daft thing is he didn't even attempt a challenge. They just seemed to come together, but it was deemed a penalty by Phil Dowd. David Dunn forgot that he wasn't Shola, and his side footed penalty was saved by Timothy and we went in at the break one goal to the good.

The second half saw Perch come on for the ineffective Ben Arfa, and I have to say he did a terrific job. When he's been asked to come into the holding role in midfield this season, he's rarely put a foot wrong. The Stoke game comes to mind. He is like a deer in the headlights when in the heart of defence, but then he isn't a centre back. Stick Cabaye there and see what would happen. Perchy made some crucial interceptions and plugged what was a gaping hole in the centre of the park. However, Blackburn's onslaught continued and Modeste missed another great opportunity when he somehow fired wide from 8 yards. Thankfully, in the dying minutes we sealed the win on the break after some neat work from Mr. Loverman and Obertan. I'm pleased for Gabby in all honesty. He has become the scapegoat this season. We always need one. In the past, you've had Ryan Taylor, James Perch, Danny Simpson, Leon Best, Shola...now it is Obertan. It seems some are not happy unless we have someone to boo or ironically cheer. People have called for Ben Arfa to play in his place, even though (a couple of cracking goals aside) he is as ineffective during games as Obertan has been. It's clear that Gabby's confidence has been shot in his last few games, and perhaps being taken out of the firing line for a few weeks will help. His goal will do him no harm either. Hopefully this will allow him to crack on and show the potential that made him France's hottest prospect when he was with Bordeaux.

We're doing really well. We don't have a team of superstars. We haven't spent a massive deal compared to the likes of Liverpool, Stoke, Sunderland and the top 4. But we're ahead of all of them (not the top 4 obviously), and rightly so. In fact our starting line up against Blackburn cost around £30million. Our theoretical "Best XI" cost around £40million - roughly Andy Carroll and Jose Enrique. Not bad eh?

Another point or three against Villa will be tremendous going into the Spurs game which you'd think we'd be lucky to get anything from. However, with the Demba's to come in there is room for some cheeky optimism.

Calm down Stephen.