Strength and character saw us through, says Karl

Rafa Benitez’s side overcame the stubborn Millers, taking the lead on the stroke of half time through Daryl Murphy’s third goal in his last three outings.

The Magpies pulled away in the second half, with a Matt Ritchie brace sandwiching an Ayoze Perez strike.

And Darlow believes United exhibited the kind of qualities he hopes will enable them to retain their position at the top of the Sky Bet Championship table for some time to come.

“In this league, we’re going to have tricky games where we have to overcome bits and pieces, and we are doing that,” he told nufc.co.uk. “That shows the strength and character of the squad. Hopefully that’ll be enough to get us back in the Premier League.

“I think we knew that they were going to sit in and try and frustrate us, really, and we just needed to wait and pick our moments. In the second half, we got into a good flow, played some good stuff and it was a good 4-0 win.

“When teams come here we know it’s going to be hard for us to manoeuvre the ball, especially when they put so many players behind the ball. Teams know that they’re coming here to a big club and a big stadium, and they know that they want to frustrate the fans and try and play on the players’ minds, really, by doing that.

“But we played some good stuff, got the three points and we move on.”

Darlow produced a stunning recovery and save to prevent Jerry Yates from opening the scoring in the first half, after the former Nottingham Forest stopper’s error had presented the visitors with a chance.

“I slid out and I knew that I was going to take the ball over the line, so I tried to leave the ball with my hand on it, and unfortunately momentum carried me out,” explained the 26-year-old after the mishap.

“Then Yedlin gets back, and it was just a bit chaotic after that. Thankfully I made the save and kept it at 0-0 at the time, and that’s the main thing.

“It was a little bit scary, but these things happen in football. It was just instinct, and not wanting it to be my fault that a goal had gone in, so it was desperation more than anything I think!”

Paul Warne’s side are bottom of the table, though the contest was far from over at the break at St. James’ Park.

But, after United’s quality came to the fore in the second period, Darlow reckons the points his side have been able to collect from tricky-looking fixtures against teams in the bottom half of the division shows are indicative of Newcastle’s discipline and strength.

“If we can carry on playing like we have done by picking up points against the teams in the lower half of the division, it’s always a good sign because they can be tricky and complacency can be as problem sometimes,” he said. “But it seems that in this squad, we’re doing well against those teams and we just need to keep on winning games and stay right at the top.

“We defended well, I had a few saves but other than that it was pretty comfortable, and we move on. Hopefully we’ll keep keeping clean sheets.”