QPR 0 NEWCASTLE 6

WITH the temperature at Loftus Road hovering around 28 degrees at kick-off, it had been the hottest September day in London for more than a century. It seemed only fitting, therefore, that Newcastle United put on a sizzling display as they equalled the biggest away win in the club’s history to move within a point of the Championship summit.

Wins over Reading, Bristol City, Brighton and Derby had confirmed Newcastle’s recovery from a shaky start to the season, but this was the night when Rafael Benitez’s side turned on the style to cement their position as the team everyone else will have to beat in the second tier.

They also rewrote the history books, emulating the Magpies’ three previous league away wins by a six-goal margin, the most recent of which had come against Walsall in 1962.

Boasting power, pace and purpose from the off, they swatted QPR aside with something approaching disdain. That they had racked up 15 shots before the interval spoke volumes for the extent of their dominance.

Jonjo Shelvey and Ayoze Perez claimed goals in that first-half period, and the pair were the stand-out players all night as they terrorised the QPR defence. Shelvey, who is beginning to look like the player who deservedly won six full England caps not so long ago, pulled the strings from the base of midfield, with Perez his willing deputy as he burst into pockets of space behind the opposition defence.

Shelvey, whose all-round display cannot have been bettered in the Championship this season, added a third goal with a breath-taking long-range strike at the start of the second half, before Ciaran Clark, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Grant Hanley added further goals to secure Newcastle’s biggest league away win for more than half-a-century.

There were some comprehensive victories during the last promotion success under Chris Hughton, but nothing as emphatic or crushing as this.

Rafael Benitez has sifted through the embers of the relegation campaign, and rapidly fashioned a squad that looks far too powerful for anything else in the Championship. Daryl Murphy and Ashraf Lazaar couldn’t even make the match-day 18 last night, with the most notable of Benitez’s four changes seeing Mitrovic handed his first Championship appearance of the season.

Is the Serb suited to life in the second tier? He certainly looked it here, with his power enabling him to hold up the ball with his back to goal, and his technique, which is often downplayed, regularly proving too much for his opponents. Crucially, his temperament was also kept in check.

Mitrovic was the architect of Newcastle’s 12th-minute opener, racing down the left-hand touchline to reach a quick throw-in, before pulling the ball intelligently in the path of Shelvey, who was loitering close to the edge of the area.

Shelvey displayed impeccable technique to drill in a fierce first-time effort, although the ball might not have ended up in the net had it not taken a hefty deflection off Steven Caulker, leaving goalkeeper Alex Smithies completely wrong-footed.

The goal was a carbon copy of an incident from five minutes earlier, when Shelvey had again drilled a deflected strike into the corner of the net. The difference on that occasion, however, was that the ball deflected off Perez, who was adjudged to have been in an offside position. Replays showed the Spaniard was probably level with the last defender when Shelvey’s shot was struck.

Had Newcastle been two goals up in the opening quarter-of-an-hour, it would have been no more than they deserved. They engulfed their opponents from the off, pouring forward with pace and purpose and committing as many players as possible into the box at every opportunity.

Matt Ritchie, who looks a cut above Championship level, tortured former Sunderland defender Nedum Onuoha down the left-hand side, and would have scored with a sizzling 25-yard effort had Smithies not produced an acrobatic save to tip the ball over.

The winger turned provider midway through the first half, but while Perez produced an excellent cushioned touch to prod the ball past his opposing centre-half, he could only drag his subsequent shot past the far post.

No matter. Newcastle’s dominance was so emphatic that the chances kept on coming, and Perez, who looked like a player reborn, duly claimed his first Championship goal on the half-hour mark.

Ritchie was heavily involved again, delivering a delicious ball from the left-hand side that evaded the QPR defence. Perez’s first shot was well saved by Smithies, but he boasted sufficient composure to casually roll the rebound into the bottom left-hand corner of the net.

Perez’s willingness to scrap in the second tier has been questioned in the last month or so, but he was here, there and everywhere last night, pulling off QPR’s centre-backs and providing a mobile target for Shelvey’s long-range through balls to track.

One such delivery sent Perez scampering into the box on the stroke of half-time, but while the Spaniard found Mitrovic with a pull-back, his fellow striker’s shot was deflected wide.

QPR boss Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink would have spent the half-time interval attempting to instil some belief into his shell-shocked players, but any hopes of a recovery from the home side were extinguished when Shelvey scored the goal of the night three minutes after the break.

There appeared to be little on when the midfielder picked up the ball from Perez close to the left touchline, but he strolled towards the corner of the area before deftly bending a sensational long-range strike into the top right-hand corner. Even at this stage, it will take some beating when it comes to determining a North-East Goal of the Season.

Clark added a fourth goal eight minutes later, powering home a back-post header from Ritchie’s corner, and with Newcastle ripping QPR apart seemingly at will, Mitrovic came close to claiming a goal of his own as his header from Perez’s cross was tipped onto the bar.

The Serb did not have to wait too long though, as he claimed the goal his spirited display deserved when he side-footed home from close range after Perez prodded Christian Atsu’s shot into his path.

That still wasn’t that though, with Hanley producing a piece of history as he prodded home Newcastle’s sixth from a half-cleared corner and Atsu coming within inches of a seventh goal as he too struck the bar.