The 26-year-old Senegal international further enhanced his blossoming reputation in English football with a match-winning treble at Stoke last night to edge the Magpies ahead of Chelsea in the fledgling table.

Alan Pardew's side entertain Everton at St James' Park on Saturday hoping to head into the latest break for international matches with 25 points safely banked and well on the way to their initial target, top-flight safety.

They will return to action facing a daunting run of fixtures which sees them play both Manchester clubs, who currently occupy first and second places, on the road before fourth-placed Chelsea arrive on Tyneside on successive weekends, but the recipe will remain the same.

Ba told NUFC TV: "We are really enjoying it and that gives us a lot of confidence, so we are just going to try to keep on doing the same things every week."

The striker, who scored seven goals in 12 appearances for West Ham last season, had added eight more in his last five league appearances for Newcastle after completing a free transfer to Tyneside during the summer.

Ironically, he missed out on a big-money move to Stoke in January after they decided not to go ahead with the transfer after a medical revealed concerns over a knee injury.

However, having carried out their own stringent checks, Newcastle were happy to offer Ba the chance to resume his career in the north-east, and he has rewarded them in handsome style.

He opened his account for the club with a hat-trick against Blackburn on September 24, and after scoring against both Wolves and Tottenham, repeated the feat at the Britannia Stadium last night.

He said: "I'm happy, to tell you the truth, I am very happy. I am just going to enjoy it for the next days.

"I am very happy for the team as well because we worked hard."

Ba's arrival at St James' did little to quell the clamour for a big-name striker to replace the departed Andy Carroll, but he, Leon Best and Shola Ameobi have more than made a fist of plugging the gap amid speculation that Sochaux's Modibo Maiga could finally join them in January.

Ba and Best in particular has formed a formidable partnership, and the former Hoffenheim frontman was quick to point to the role played by his side-kick in his recent success.

He said: "He's a good strike-partner. He is strong, he can hold the ball and I just come around him and play football. That's nice."