NINETEEN Championship starts, nineteen Championship goals. While the rest of the country celebrated as 2017 was ushered in at the weekend, Dwight Gayle could be forgiven for not wanting 2016 to end.

A year that started with the striker languishing in Crystal Palace’s reserves ended with him as the leading goalscorer in the whole of English football following his £10m summer move to Newcastle United.

There have been many different factors behind the renaissance that has seen Newcastle shrug off the effects of last season’s relegation to assume a position at the top of the Championship, not least the presence of Champions League-winning manager Rafael Benitez, but Gayle’s form since arriving on Tyneside has been as important as anything.

Benitez might like to chop and change certain areas of his side, but despite a particularly hectic fixture schedule in the last few weeks, it is telling that Gayle has started six games in a row ahead of this afternoon’s trip to Blackburn Rovers.

Those six games have featured six goals, and if the 26-year-old was to maintain his goal-a-game ratio in the second half of the season, it would take a strange turn of events for Newcastle not to secure an immediate return to the top-flight.

“It's really nice to get the goals I’m getting,” said Gayle, who can expect to be play in front of Mo Diame when the Magpies visit Ewood Park later today. “This is what I love doing, and after each goal it’s just a fantastic feeling.

“Obviously, I need to pay a lot of credit to the team though and what they’re doing for me. A good 90 per cent of my goals are coming from inside the six-yard box, and when that happens, it means the team is doing a lot for you. I love playing in front of the quality we’ve got, and long may it continue.

“It’s fantastic for me to be on 19 goals at this stage. At times I perhaps get a bit frustrated because I maybe don’t get to touch the ball as much as I want, but when I do get to touch the ball, it’s obviously in good positions and I’m scoring so I can’t really argue.”

Alan Shearer was the last Newcastle player to score 20 goals in a season, having last achieved the feat in the 2003-04 campaign. Andy Carroll and Kevin Nolan were joint top-scorers with 17 when the Magpies won promotion in 2010, but whereas the goals were shared around fairly evenly in Chris Hughton’s team, the current side is hugely reliant on Gayle’s efforts.

Matt Ritchie and Yoan Gouffran are the next highest scorers, with four goals apiece, and while Aleksandar Mitrovic and Daryl Murphy provide alternative attacking options, it is no surprise to see Benitez considering a loan move for a striker before the end of the month.

Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson is one player under serious consideration, with even Gayle conceding that Newcastle are still to master the art of scratching out a win when required.

They arguably did that on Friday night as they saw off Nottingham Forest without being at their best, but the Boxing Day defeat at Sheffield Wednesday highlighted an Achilles heel that has seen Newcastle suffer five defeats by a one-goal margin already this season.

One of those reverses saw Blackburn leave Gallowgate with a 1-0 victory in November, and while Benitez will be demanding a much-improved performance when his side make the return trip to Lancashire this afternoon, Newcastle’s players also need to improve their record when they are not at their free-flowing optimum.

“Perhaps we need to learn how to play better when it’s 0-0 or we’re 1-0 down,” said Gayle. “It wasn’t the best performance against Forest, but the fact we got the three points meant it was still a perfect night for us.

“Perhaps that’s where we’ve struggled a bit, and not got results when we’ve not been at our best. We showed we could do that on Friday, and that’s a good sign. We know we have a lot of improvements we can bring to the table, so it’s good and bad really.”

Today’s game represents the final involvement for Diame, Christian Atsu and Chancel Mbemba before they leave to represent their respective national teams in the Africa Cup of Nations.

“We go into the game with confidence, but we need to go there knowing if we don't turn up, we could lose,” added Gayle. “We saw when they came to our place last month that they can be a very dangerous team.

“They set up strong and were hard to break down, so we need to go in there with our heads switched on and with intensity, working hard.”