PRIOR to yesterday's home game with West Ham, Newcastle's players wore T-shirts displaying their support for the club's embattled sponsors, Northern Rock.

And just as the North-East's leading bank will be hoping to recover from a particularly bad week, so Newcastle's footballers successfully set about restoring their own reputation after a difficult few days.

The Magpies' stock plummeted after Monday's dismal defeat at Derby, but a convincing 3-1 win over West Ham means that confidence has been restored.

Sam Allardyce's account is once more in credit after supporters had begun to question the wisdom of his team-building plans, and Mark Viduka's first-half double was a valuable repayment of the investment his manager has made in his services.

Even the forced withdrawal of Michael Owen - the England international was substituted before the hour mark for the second game in a row as he continued to struggle with a groin problem - was insufficient to dispel the optimism that accompanied Newcastle's best display of the season.

Barring a 15-minute spell that culminated in Dean Ashton cancelling out Viduka's second-minute opener, the Magpies comprehensively outplayed a West Ham side that began the game two points above their opponents in the table.

Viduka proved too powerful for a rattled Anton Ferdinand to handle and, at the other end of the field, David Rozehnal and Claudio Cacapa continued to develop a centre-half pairing that grows stronger by the week.

Habib Beye enjoyed an impressively industrious debut at right-back, while man-of-the-match Charles N'Zogbia ran Lucas Neill ragged on the opposite flank.

The Frenchman set up both of Viduka's goals with tantalising crosses from the left, before claiming his third goal of the season to wrap up the win.

Having shelled out £6.2m to sign Jose Enrique in an attempt to address Newcastle's long-standing left-back problem, Allardyce has discovered that the solution lay at St James' Park all along.

Having spent the majority of his career in midfield, N'Zogbia is able to offer the kind of thrusting attacking threat that is posed by the Premier League's most effective full-backs.

Yesterday's marauding performance from the France under 21 international bore obvious similarities to the all-action displays produced by the likes of Gael Clichy and Ashley Cole, with N'Zogbia unlocking the West Ham defence as early as the second minute.

James Milner doggedly retained possession close to the corner flag, N'Zogbia whipped in a teasing left-footed cross and Viduka stole in front of Ferdinand to steer a firm downward header past Robert Green.

Less than 120 seconds gone, and the Magpies had already displayed more invention than they had shown in the entire 90 minutes at Pride Park.

Newcastle had missed Viduka's aerial prowess when he was sidelined with a hamstring strain last Monday and, for all that Shola Ameobi boasts a height advantage over his attacking rival, Viduka carries a goalscoring threat that his ready-made replacement cannot match.

Unfortunately, for the hosts, that threat was nowhere to be seen for the next 20 minutes as West Ham's midfielders dragged their side back into the game.

While the physical Ashton was the focal point for the majority of the visitors' attacks, Mark Noble's regular breaks from midfield proved difficult for the Newcastle defence to track.

Only a full-strength save from Steve Harper, again preferred to Shay Given, prevented Noble from equalising following a 27th-minute one-two with Matthew Etherington, and the Hammers fully merited the leveller that arrived five minutes later.

Neill's long throw was met with paralysis in the Newcastle six-yard box and, after Carlton Cole had won a knock-down ahead of Cacapa, Ashton swept home an instinctive close-range volley.

Newcastle's early momentum had all but disappeared by that stage, but the hosts swiftly regained their lead four minutes before the break and, for the second time in the game, their goal owed much to N'Zogbia's adventurous approach.

The Frenchman raced on to Rozehnal's long ball from the back and effortlessly twisted inside Neill, before delivering a precise low centre that Viduka bundled home from close range.

Viduka's second ensured that the first half ended on a high note for the hosts.

But Owen's all-too-predictable departure meant that the start to the second period was soured.

Yet while the England international's substitution robbed the Magpies of their record signing, the introduction of Obafemi Martins provided a much-needed injection of pace.

The Nigerian has been shuffled onto the bench to accommodate Owen's return despite starting the season in impressive style, and while Owen boasts an enviable goalscoring record, it can be argued that Newcastle are a much more balanced side when Martins is playing.

He certainly posed more of an attacking threat in the second half of yesterday's game than Owen had managed before the break.

With Martins forcing West Ham's defenders onto the back foot, space began to open up in front of the visitors' back four, and both Rozehnal and Nicky Butt went close with efforts from distance.

Lee Bowyer tested Harper with a header at the other end, and the former Magpies midfielder went even closer with a 72nd-minute strike that the United goalkeeper did well to parry to safety.

But having survived those scares, Newcastle secured victory four minutes later as N'Zogbia turned from provider to poacher.

Having fed Martins on the left touchline, the France Under-21 international continued his run into the box and stole ahead of Ferdinand to convert his team-mate's subsequent cross.

Martins went close to making the scoreline even more comprehensive late on, but after latching on to Jonathan Spector's weak pass and rounding Green, the substitute fired against the right-hand upright with the goal at his mercy