ISAAC HAYDEN claims a ‘cultural shift’ was the key to Newcastle United’s Championship title triumph, and is backing Rafael Benitez to maintain a unified dressing room in the Premier League next season.

When he arrived at St James’ Park towards the end of last season, Benitez inherited a squad riven with splits and dominated by big-name players with inflated egos.

The majority of those players departed in the wake of relegation, with their replacements quickly gelling to form a side that powered its way to promotion.

Having agreed to remain as manager following this week’s discussions with Mike Ashley, Benitez will remodel his squad again in the next few months with the help of an £80m transfer kitty. That risks upsetting the balance of the current dressing room, but Hayden is confident Benitez’s astute squad-building will prove every bit as effective this summer.

“It’s a culture thing,” said the midfielder, whose performances have more than justified Newcastle’s decision to spend £2.5m on purchasing him from Arsenal last summer. “People can be easily led into (thinking) it's this player, that player or this player has contributed more, but overall even in training, players who haven't played a lot this season have still dug in and done their work and grafted hard, and that makes a good mentality for everybody.

“I think it's been a little bit underestimated how good a job the manager has done because it's difficult as a manager to get arguably a whole new squad. He got 12 new players in, he lost players who were important last season for the club, or termed big players, but he got the right characters back into the club.

“Everyone wanted to do well and work hard. It's not easy to gel and especially to get the formation and tactics right, but everyone has worked hard, and it's credit to the manager and the staff. It's not just the manager, it's the fitness coaches, the backroom staff who maybe don't get mentioned. It's everybody.”

The transformation culminated in Newcastle’s title victory, with the Magpies edging ahead of Brighton in the final two minutes of the season as Chris Hughton’s side conceded an 89th-minute equaliser at Aston Villa.

St James’ Park erupted as news of Villa’s goal filtered through, and while Hayden was also promoted during a loan spell at Hull City, Sunday’s success easily trumped his triumph with the Tigers.

“It was unbelievable, I can't put it into words,” he said. “Obviously, it's the second time I have been promoted now in two seasons, but that was by far the better way to do it, winning the title, and especially the way we did it.

“It's just unbelievable. Villa obviously did us a favour – and especially with ten men, so you have to give them credit and give my old manager, Steve Bruce, a bit of a pat on the back. It was fabulous, and to do it at home and have the home crowd behind us was amazing.

“I swear on my life, though, I did believe there would be a twist, and even though we were seven points behind with three games to go, anything can happen in football. You still have to believe.”

Hayden can be forgiven if his memories of the final afternoon are somewhat hazy, as he was substituted after just 13 minutes of Newcastle’s 3-0 win over Barnsley after colliding with goalkeeper Rob Elliot.

The midfielder has fully recovered from the incident now, but admits leaving the field in a daze was not how he wanted to sign off for the season.

“It’s not the way I wanted the season to end,” he said. “But when it’s that sort of injury, you don’t want to be taking any risks.

“Rob came out and went to call it, and whoever I was marking – I don't know who it was – came in and pushed, so my head just hit Rob. I don't know what body part it was, but the next thing I knew, the physios had come on and I was saying, ‘What happened?’

“It was one of those where I wanted to carry on, but the protocol is if it's a head injury, you have to be taken off. I said, 'Look, I'll give it a go, I want to see how I feel and we'll go from there'.

“But I was jogging up the pitch and everything was blurry, so I thought, 'There's no point doing this'. I had to come off anyway because of the protocol anyway.”