BOBBY Robson was as relieved as he was delighted after seeing Craig Bellamy head Newcastle into second place in the Premiership.

The Welshman's 15th goal of the season came 11 minutes from the end of a terrific tussle to give the Magpies what their manager described as "a massive victory" and prompted a prediction that Wanderers have what it takes to beat the drop.

"If they play like that they have a good chance of staying in the Premiership," Robson said.

"They are a difficult side to play against. We didn't give away the goals, they scored them, and the second was a tremendous strike. They pressured us and stopped us from clearing the ball. It came out to the fringe and the fella hit a glorious strike.

"If we'd scored the same goal I would have been doing somersaults.

"The first one came when one of our players (Jamie McClen) was caught in possession but to be fair to the young lad, it was his third game in seven days. He didn't let it affect him and did a lot of other good things."

Robson, who praised his team's character and quality for twice coming from behind to win the 100th league meeting of the two famous old clubs, blamed Jussi Jaaskelainen for conceding the hotly debated free kick that led to Alan Shearer scoring the first of his two equalising goals, but also praised the Wanderers' keeper for a second half save from Laurent Robert's shot eight minutes after Shay Given's crucial save from Ricardo Gardner. "The two saves were equal," he said. "One for them, one for us ... but we got the winner."

The respected former England manager, ridiculed in some quarters for the jumbled metaphor used when he refused to talk about Newcastle's title chances ("If we start counting our chickens before they hatch, we won't lay the egg!") said he had "just a tinge of sorrow" for Wanderers.

He was certainly impressed by the effectiveness of their system.

"We deserved it in the end because we had so much pressure in the second half," he said. "But they were dangerous on the counter. They played four at the back with a sitting midfield player then two (central) midfield players. We always had a problem because their two midfield players (Farrelly and Nolan) were always trying to get forward while Southall was always shoring up the back four.

"Our two strikers did well but it was never easy. Southampton took two points off Arsenal and Wanderers could have taken two points off us."