IF you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Newcastle United became the first visiting team to rule the Britannia in this season’s Premier League with two route one goals straight out of the Stoke City manual.

Fresh from their first defeat of the campaign, Newcastle needed a steadying point with the challenges of two trips to Manchester and a visit from Chelsea ahead this month.

But Demba Ba’s second hat-trick of the season ensured they did better than that. Little surprise, then, that the visiting fans were gleefully singing manager Alan Pardew’s name.

The problem of how to combat Stoke in their own ground has caused many a managerial headache. The faint outlines showed a pitch shrunk in all directions beyond the minimum size in European football, and the hosts are notoriously good at exploiting it.

On his last trip here, Pardew changed formation and suffered the biggest defeat of his Newcastle career.

On the anniversary of his best, he stuck to Plan A – making just one enforced change from the team which had started the last five league matches – but recorded an important victory by playing the Potters at their own game.

All three Newcastle goals were scored by Demba Ba, a player Stoke agreed to sign from Hoffenheim in January, only to back out when they saw the medical results on his knees.

He was certainly not in danger of winning any popularity contests on the terraces last night, even before he opened the scoring.

With ball players Danny Guthrie and Yohan Cabaye in central midfield, the visitors were better set up to play football than Stoke’s affront to it. But they showed no sniffiness when they had to mix it with the Premier League’s most direct side. Ryan Taylor put an ambitious volley wide in the second minute when the Magpies’ second corner of the game was cleared to him, but the left-back did as much first-half work with his hands as his feet, as enthusiastic about using the towels the ball boys carried as Rory Delap.

It was Tim Krul’s boot, though, which launched the opening goal.