MATT RITCHIE feels Newcastle United’s surge to safety in the last few weeks has provided further vindication of his decision to step down to the Championship when he left Bournemouth two summers ago.

Ritchie swapped the Premier League for the second tier when he moved to St James’ Park, but returned to the top-flight at the end of last season when he helped Newcastle claim the Championship title.

He is now part of a Magpies side that will spend the final five games of the current campaign battling to hold on to a place in the top ten, with last weekend’s 2-1 win over Arsenal having taken Newcastle past the 40-point mark, effectively guaranteeing their safety from relegation.

After a lengthy period of struggle, both on and off the pitch, it feels as though Newcastle are on an upward curve, and while some key issues will have to be resolved this summer, most notably relating to Mike Ashley’s ownership of the club and Rafael Benitez’s position as manager, there is a sense that things are finally heading in the right direction.

“I always hoped I would be a part of something like this at Newcastle,” said Ritchie, who has scored three goals in his last six games. “When I left Bournemouth, I left with a heavy heart because it was a fantastic spell in my career and I absolutely loved it down there. But this was an opportunity to come to a massive football club with great potential, and I wanted to be a part of that.

“I don’t want to get carried away because by no means have we achieved anything yet. We know that. We’ve had a good run, but it’s only about a month ago that we were playing Manchester United and staring at the bottom three. Had we not won that game, we might have been in a different fight.

“But we did that win that game and we’ve kicked on since then. We’ve had some good results and it feels like things are moving the right way. We have to keep our feet on the ground though. We’ve achieved nothing yet, and we have to keep going with the mentality and philosophy that we’ve had all season.

“If we do that, then yes, there’s a great opportunity to build and hopefully push on in the right direction. But as you’ve seen, we’ve been on the right side of a lot of one-goal margins this season and that can quite easily turn. You see in the Premier League, it’s so tight every week.”

Nevertheless, while previous Newcastle sides have amounted to considerably less than the sum of their parts, this is a team that pulls together to extract the absolute maximum from the resources available.

Benitez has been integral to nurturing that spirit, but the players also deserve a lot of credit for the way in which they have bought in to their manager’s ethos.

Hard work is embraced rather than avoided – both on the pitch and the training ground – and the result is a side that will head to Everton on Monday night looking to leapfrog their opponents and move into ninth position in the table.

“It’s all about mentality,” said Ritchie. “We give ourselves the opportunity to win games or take points from games. That’s down to our work ethic I think. On and off the ball, everyone is working so hard. That’s the difference between being on the right side and the wrong side of the result in a really tight game.”