Alan Pardew: "If you work for the football club here in Newcastle, football up here is a religion to some people, it really is taken that seriously.
"Everywhere we went, we were reminded of how important this fixture was. It wasn't lost on the dressing room, rest assured of that, and we made sure we won that game today.
"Harps [keeper Steve Harper] said before we went out, 'Whatever it takes, let's make sure we win this game', and we did that.
"The performance at Stoke just started ringing a few alarm bells. But it was a one-off game at Stoke. It didn't go for us, it didn't work out, but we were back to what we are about today.
"We are definitely safer, but I don't even want to think about Villa because, at the moment, me and [assistant manager] John [Carver] could be putting our kit on.
"We will savour today, but we are going to have to do a lot of work between now and Villa next Sunday because we have got one or two missing and one or two injured today."