Newcastle United win eases relegation fears

Newcastle boss Alan Shearer has praised his little and large strike-force after seeing them secure a priceless victory over Middlesbrough. Boro old boy Mark Viduka and substitute Obafemi Martins, a 70th-minute replacement for Michael Owen, played crucial roles in a win which moved the Magpies out of the Premier League relegation zone and gave them genuine hope of survival. The Australian led the line superbly for 87 minutes to show just how much his long-term Achilles injury had cost the club, while Martins scored a match-changing second goal within seconds of his arrival. Shearer said of Viduka: "He was brilliant. Everything we put into him, it stuck. I looked at it even with ten minutes left and I was thinking to myself, 'He has still got the energy to cause them problems'. "A fit Mark Viduka and more matches and he can produce a performance like that. "That's why the medical side and the fitness side have worked very hard too get him fit, because when he plays like that, he is very difficult to handle." Shearer's substitutions worked superbly when Martins and Peter Lovenkrands each struck within the final 19 minutes to win a game from which their side could afford to take nothing less than three points. The Teessiders had taken the lead after Habib Beye's unfortunate own goal in the third-minute, but Steven Taylor levelled within six minutes, and that is how the scoreline remained until Martins' introduction.

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ITN | May 12, 2009

Tags:. .relegation. .obafemi. .teessiders. .superbly. .scoreline