NEWCASTLE United can attribute their first Premier League victory in four to an inspirational display from the home side's midfield quartet.

Lee Bowyer, Nolberto Solano, Charles N'Zogbia and, to a lesser extent, Emre truly dominated their talented counterparts in an exciting action-packed clash at St James Park.

Spurs arrived on Tyneside bursting with a wealth of talent and experience in the midfield engine room with Michael Carrick and former United star Jermaine Jenas, in particular, pivotal in the north Londoners rise to a Champions League position this season.

Edgar Davids, on the other hand, has seen it, done it and got the proverbial T-shirt. The 33-year-old - a Champions League winner with Ajax and a World Cup semi-finalist for Holland in France 1998 - has been one of the world's top players for the best part of 15 years. And in teenager Aaron Lennon, Spurs have one of the country's most precocious talents.

But despite arriving as one of the Premiership's form sides the visitors failed to cope with a rampant Newcastle midfield bristling with pace, poise and precision.

If Solano was the director and architect of all United's best operations and sorties from the right flank then Bowyer was his executioner.

The former Charlton and Leeds man gave arguably his finest performance in a black and white shirt and had a hand in all three goals.

Spurs fans had barely taken their seats when Bowyer gave United the lead with little over a minute on the clock following a devastating counter-attacking move of speed, skill and clinical finishing. N'Zogbia slipped a ball - Alan Shearer stepped over - to Solano who revealed superb vision and awareness to slide a beautifully weighted pass back to the fleet-footed Frenchman tearing down the left. N'Zogbia avoided the attentions of Stephen Kelly and Anthony Gardner to get to the byline and picked out Bowyer's perfectly timed run and he netted from close range. Solano and Bowyer then combined to set up Newcastle's second in which Shola Ameobi obliged. The Londoner put a bone-crushing tackle in on Robbie Keane and the ball ran to the Peruvian who stung Paul Robinson's fingers and Ameobi reacted quickest to sweep home from six yards.

The 29-year-old Bowyer then won a penalty - Shearer converted on the half hour - when Davids was penalised for a clumsy challenge following a perfectly weighted Solano through ball.

But it would be unfair to say Spurs never recovered from Bowyer's first minute opener because Robbie Keane had the Magpies tied in knots on several occasions throughout the exciting Premiership encounter.

The Republic of Ireland international headed a fine instinctive leveller 20 minutes later - after Lennon ghosted past Stephen Carr - when he lost his marker Craig Moore and, shaved both post and bar in an impressive 90 minutes.

But Keane and Lennon aside, the visitor's midfield failed to get to grips with their rampant counterparts.

Carrick looks a world class performer when he is given time and space to spray passes all around the park but, when pressed and harried, the Geordie-born midfielder doesn't seem to fancy the rough and tumble and, isn't too keen on tracking back.

Jenas was another who didn't have the best of times on his former stomping ground. The 23-year-old had a goal chalked off for a foul, missed a glaring sitter and put all his set-pieces into the St James' Park crowd.

And at 33-years-of-age, Davids can't get box-to-box the way he did in his pomp. He did his best to track Bowyer's footsteps but, like his colleagues, was a yard off the pace.

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