Wanderers 4 Newcastle 3 by Neil Bonnar: SAM Allardyce hailed this result as "a magnificent victory" after Wanderers hauled themselves out of the bottom three for the first time in three months in a thrilling clash with the Toon Army.

The Reebok boss was lavish in his praise of his team's goal quality and resilience which saw them hang on to the victory, where as in recent games they have thrown points away at the end.

He enthused: "At 4-1 it was looking like a good solid performance, and I thought we would see the game out with our determination.

"A deflected goal and an unstoppable free kick from Alan Shearer put us under pressure, but the players did well to see the game out after that.

"They looked to have learned their lesson."

Allardyce was also delighted with Michael Ricketts' double strike, which added to his first goal from open play in 11 months at West Ham on Saturday.

"I was hoping Michael would do what a lot of strikers do after they get that first goal, which is go on and get some more.

"That is what he has done, and he is now our leading goal scorer again. Long may it continue for him, but we also need people like Henrik Pedersen and Youri Djorkaeff to get into double figures."

Bobby Robson was left shaking his head and sighing ruefully that the biggest word in football is 'if'.

If Lomano Lua Lua had been given a free kick in the 89th minute instead of being booked for diving, the Newcastle manager pondered, and if Alan Shearer had scored from it, they would have been looking back on a much more cheerful Christmas.

Wanderers could also be forgiven for wondering 'what if' today. But in their case it is what kind of Premiership position they would be in if Ricketts had been playing like this all season.

You are not supposed to get new players before the transfer window opens but that is exactly what the powerful front man has looked like in the last two games.

Sometimes it just does not work for strikers. The chances either dry up or go begging, the confidence saps and they end up on the bench or out of the picture altogether.

Only one person can pull them out of it and that is the player himself. Ricketts' re-emergence has been sensational, sudden and totally self-deserving.

He looked to have turned the clock back 12 months in a wonderful 37 minutes at West Ham on Saturday and followed up where he left off to destroy a recently water-tight Newcastle defence yesterday.

Most people point back to his England call-up at the start of the year as the moment Ricketts' form began to slide so it is slightly disconcerting that his great mate and colleague Kevin Nolan reckons his second England cap cannot be far away on this form.

But you have to take Nolan's point because there are no more effective, threatening or powerful strikers in England than Ricketts when he plays like this.

He took two totally different types of goal - one a soaring target man's planting header, the other a precision shot at the end of a pacey run - ruthlessly but his movement and the frighteners he put on Newcastle's two centre halves proved he has simply got everything in his locker except consistency.

That ingredient could be something Wanderers are beginning to get as they prepare for Everton on Saturday with just two defeats from the last eight Premiership games.

Wanderers, it seems, are becoming hard to beat despite their lack of clean sheets which they have not managed to keep in any of the last 15 games.

Actually, clean sheets are all very nice but there is nothing quite like a good 4-3 thriller for the fans if not for managers and coaches.

Wanderers got off to a flier in the fifth minute, when Okocha almost broke the net from the edge of the box, to the very end when they showed professionalism to play the final minutes out by the opposition corner flag.

It sounds odd when a team concedes three goals at home but the defence was outstanding. It could do nothing about two of the goals, Shearer's 25-yard free kick and Shola Ameobi's deflected shot, while Ameobi, Dyer and scorer Shearer produced a lightning quick move for their first that few defences could cope with.

Per Frandsen would have walked away with the man of the match award had it not been for Ricketts, while Ricardo Gardner doing a fine job on Dyer as well as scoring a screamer of a 25-yard free kick to put Wanderers 2-1 up after nine scintillating minutes.

That strike was hard but not as hard as Okocha's opener four minutes earlier after Gardner had robbed Dyer and laid the ball on a plate for the Nigerian to get every ounce of his powerful frame behind his shot from the edge of the box.

Ricketts put Wanderers into a winter wonderland when he punished Gary Speed's poor back pass with a smart turn, searing burst of pace and quality finish before the Newcastle comeback which provided Wanderers with a stern test of character that they passed in the final 10 minutes.