Belgium is conquered, now time for a reunion

NEWCASTLE provided the muscles in Brussels to swat away Belgium's champions with a four-goal torrent that brought spectacular Champions League liftoff and hopefully kickstarts our season.

- JOHNGIBSON

It was a devastating performance of va va voom - goals where there had been very few and yet another clean sheet achieved on the road. This was a marvellous trip down memory lane to what United were at their very best.

Eddie Howe paired his blue-chip front three for the first time from the off and the response was devastating. Nick Woltemade nicked his third goal with an audacious flick through his legs and showed dancing feet to match the old master Fred Astaire, while the two Anthonys produced wing displays I had been begging to see.

Gordon rediscovered his bounce, topped off by scoring two superbly-placed penalties to show we have found a spot-kick successor to Alexander Isak, and Elanga reminded us why United paid big bucks to bring him north. Enough blowtorch pace to blister paintwork topped off by service good enough for the Savoy.

Aye, United were ‘idiots’ to sign our German giraffe. Bayern are right. It's embarrassing to be stupid!

Now, confidence restored, hope revived, the Mags return home in full spirit to try to right the wrongs of our Premier League programme so far.

Can Big Ange give us a helping hand instead of becoming Nottingham Forest’s saviour as his chairman fully expected?

Newcastle have won just one Premier League game in six attempts during what was a nightmare start to the season and that scraped 1-0 against bottom-of-the-table Wolves.