DAVIDE Santon is confident his Newcastle team-mates will not allow Wednesday's extra-time defeat at Blackburn to derail their unbeaten start to the Premier League campaign.

Santon could not have wished for a more dramatic introduction to life in English football as his first Magpies start coincided with a seven-goal thriller that saw Newcastle crash out of the Carling Cup.

The defeat represented the club's first setback of the campaign, and ended a 14-game unbeaten run that had stretched back to April.

The challenge now is to ensure the hangover does not affect Monday's Premier League trip to Stoke City, with Santon confident there is a strong enough spirit within the squad to guarantee a positive response at the Britannia Stadium.

"We lost Wednesday's game, but we're in a good place in the league," said the Italian, who joined Newcastle in a £6m switch from Inter Milan in August. "That is where we are concentrating now. We need to keep going and carry on winning.

"The most important thing now is that we show our fighting spirit and come back strong from the defeat.

"It was my first full game, we lost but there is a spirit in the squad that is fantastic. We need to pick ourselves up and make sure that we win at Stoke."

Wednesday's reverse has ended Newcastle's hopes of reaching Wembley in the Carling Cup final and removed one of the two realistic routes to ending the club's 42-year wait for a piece of major silverware.

It has also silenced talk of qualifying for Europe via the League Cup, but with the Magpies currently sitting in fourth position in the table with a quarter of the season gone, Santon insists there is no reason why continental competition should not be secured via the league.

"We hoped to get into Europe through the League Cup but now we must look to the league for that," he said.

"We need to aim for a top-four spot. We have a fantastic squad. But we have a lot of very, very big games against very good teams coming up and we need to put all of our efforts into doing that now."

Those big games include a three-match run that pits Newcastle against Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea in the space of two weeks.

Santon will compete against the Magpies' current first-choice left-back, Ryan Taylor, for a place in those games, and having experienced the helter-skelter nature of English football at first hand at Ewood Park, the 20-year-old feels he now boasts a greater understanding of what is required to succeed in the fast-paced environment of the Premier League.

"I feel I know something about English football now after playing in that match," he said. "The fans were incredible, and it was an interesting game that was very fast paced. English football is like this, it is why I wanted to come here.

"It was a bad first half for the team, although the second half and extra-time was much, much better. As for me? There is much more to come. It went okay but I can play much better."