Rafa Benitez says Newcastle are going in the right direction after they went back to the summit of the Sky Bet Championship with a 4-0 rout of Rotherham.
The Toon Army responded to Brighton's win over Sheffield Wednesday on Friday night by despatching the rock-bottom Millers with goals from Daryl Murphy, Matt Ritchie (2) and Ayoze Perez.
It was their joint best home win of the season and came after a testing opening 45 minutes.
Murphy's opener arrived in first-half stoppage time and the floodgates opened after the break.
"We scored the first goal at the right time and then got the second at a good time too," the Spaniard said. "We had a lot of chances, it was a comfortable win in the end.
"Credit to them, they were working hard and in the first half they made it difficult to play against.
"It was a frustrating first half, though I don't think they created too much.
"We needed to win, we did it, we scored four goals, got a clean sheet, three points so it was job done. It was a good day. We are going in the right direction."
On Ritchie, Benitez added: "We knew he was a very good player. He approaches the game with confidence. He has so much in his game, he brings the best out of other players. All the top midfielders in this division score goals and he is doing that. He is very important for us."