Newcastle United fans will be pinching themselves after this one, as they rarely see such an emphatic victory on home turf.

Cardiff City were devoid of any actual attacking intent, only registering one shot on target throughout the 90 minutes.

After going the full distance with Blackburn Rovers, on Tuesday night, this game was whole lot easier to get the victory in for Newcastle. Swiss defender Fabian Schar scored his first and second goals for the club. The defender only came into the side because of the injury to Ciaran Clark. Attacker Ayoze Perez added the icing on top of the cake in injury time, converting from a Salomon Rondon cross. 

This was a mirror result of the last time the sides met at St James' Park, as back in 2014, Newcastle ran out 3-0 winners in a Premier League fixture thanks to goals from Shola Ameobi, Loic Remy and Steven Taylor. The result in 2014 relegated Cardiff from the Premier League, could this result hold huge significance. 

Lack of forward force is Cardiff's biggest concern

Even after Neil Warnock's comments last week, Cardiff are bringing in Argentinian striker Emilaino Sala and have loaned in Oumar Niasse from Everton, who did start in this game. 

Cardiff's biggest issue, especially on the road has been their attacking play. Today they only managed 10 shots on Newcastle's goal and only one of those was on target. Martin Dubravka could have brought a pack of cards with him, as he had so little to do.

Cardiff played 4-4-2 today, but neither striker rarely got close enough to the goal to actually trouble the Newcastle backline. Cardiff's most attacking threat was Junior Hoilett who did try and take a lot of pot shots but a majority of the time it was blocked by a Newcastle defender. 

Hopefully, from a Cardiff point of view, the signing of Sala can inspire the goals to flow on the road as they have now only scored a single goal in their last five games in all competitions. 

Cardiff now have 10 days to regroup before they take on Unai Emery's Arsenal at the Emirates. 

The dark cloud over St James' Park is temporarily lifted

As previously mentioned this win lifts Newcastle out of the bottom three above, their opponents Cardiff. 

This was also Newcastle's first win in the league in over a month since beating Huddersfield Town at the John Smith's Stadium. Their last win at St James' Park came all the back at the start of November against Bournemouth. 

Given all the troubles off of the field, it has been a good week for Newcastle, as they progressed to the 4th round of the FA Cup on Tuesday night and are now out of the bottom three. 

This was also the first time Newcastle have scored three goals in one home game since beating Barnsley, 3-0 in May 2017. 

Fans gave the side a frosty reception but that was more directed at owner Mike Ashley who is reportedly pulling the plug on Peter Kenyon's takeover bid. It was Ashley's first visit to St James' since November and the fans showed their hostility towards their owner.

It was quite a dull opening to the game with neither side creating much. It took a moment of magic from Schar who picked the ball up from Isaac Hayden and drifted into the box and drilled it into the bottom corner of the net before celebrating infront of the Gallowgate end. That is the kind of passion that will please supporters. Schar added his second in the second half before Perez topped it all off. Newcastle could have had more goals as they were constantly threatening Neil Etheridge's goal. 

Hopefully, a result like this will spur the side on to pull away from the drop zone and maintain another season in the Premier League.