Then Sky showed Gareth Bale’s standard screamer and blimey it was a fine strike. The margin for error had been completely erased so it was down to maintaining that clean sheet. Given all the nerves and fear when I think back, we were relatively in control of the game. The Geordies may have had spells of good ball possession but they really did not test Szczesny anywhere near as much as you’d think. Theo Walcott had finally managed to get that pass where he would be set clear, his foot work to turn the defender was actually quite good but his finish only found the base of the post rather than the net, with Bale’s goal still fresh in the mind, the fear of the late sting was a concern. Sky television wanted to let us know every couple of seconds that a Newcastle goal would send heroic mighty underdog Tottenham into the champions league.

It is all over, weeks and weeks of ridiculously high tension came to an end when Howard Webb blew the final whistle at St James’ park yesterday early evening.

Given that Tottenham were more than likely to pick up all three points in their fixture, we knew that only victory would be the only result that would see us remain in the Champions League for the new season.

In the past I would have taken a look at our display in the first 10 minutes of the game and would have feared for the worse. Not anymore, this Arsene Wenger team have been forced towards the clutches of pragmatism and rather than push it away we instead embraced it. I will thank a few people for that later on in this article.

We didn’t create a great deal of clear cut chances, Newcastle showed that pressure does to teams because they looked free of any tension while we stuck to our shape rather than force our attacking game on them.

I was hoping that we would use Theo as much as possible but he never really got away from Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa usually because he didn’t get the pass he needed, rather than outstanding defensive play.

Speaking of outstanding defensive play, I think Laurent Koscielny will finally start getting the recognition he deserves. Last game of the season, on Sky television beamed out to millions, pundits raving about him post match, that should do the trick. As regular readers will know, I have enjoyed Koscielny more as a defender than any defender I can think of in recent times and yes I know that is a big statement but I really think he has the tools to become one of the best in Europe.

Last season he was head and shoulders our best defender and was on the rise so while I understood why a season starting injury would keep him out for the short term, I was a little bemused as to why he wasn’t being restored to the starting line up. Even when we were keeping clean sheets I couldn’t help but feel uneasy having our best centre back on the bench.

This game is all about taking your chances when you get it and Laurent Koscielny did just that. He was his usual self yesterday, insanely quick across the floor, aggressive in the tackle but with expert timing. For all the good final third possession Newcastle United had, they were restricted to only a few efforts and that was partly down the quality of Koscielny.

Humble, quiet off the pitch, clearly well liked in the dressing room and extremely dedicated off it, the only way is up for him.

The midfield had another big part to play and they did it very well. It was even more impressive when you consider the changes that had to happen when a patched up Mikel Arteta couldn’t continue beyond half an hour.

Arsene low on options had turned to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and even more surprising that Santi Cazorla remained out wide which could tell you about Santi’s future in this team. Even with the personnel changes, the centre midfielder’s did not stop running, tackling and intercepting in front of our back line.

When we won a corner on 52 minutes I screamed out go on Kos, I have no idea why. I hadn’t done that before during the game and amazingly our super centre back latched onto Podolski’s head and hooked the ball in off Steve Harper’s face. Koscielny had taken that with the agility of a top striker high on confidence.

That post goal pause happened once more and for good reason at the time, Koscielny standing on his own in front of the keeper looked as if the possibility of offside was very much there but looking back at it, it was perfectly legit. Too legit to quit you could say.

After manic celebrations with my good friend and then the relief of shouting out the built up tension, it dawned on me that not much had changed, a Newcastle goal at any point would ruin everything and we still had roughly 35 minutes to play. I doubted whether we would score the second because quite frankly we didn’t look offensively capable of it and we certainly would not be going all out for it.

Then Sky showed Gareth Bale’s standard screamer and blimey it was a fine strike. The margin for error had been completely erased so it was down to maintaining that clean sheet. Given all the nerves and fear when I think back, we were relatively in control of the game. The Geordies may have had spells of good ball possession but they really did not test Szczesny anywhere near as much as you’d think.

Theo Walcott had finally managed to get that pass where he would be set clear, his foot work to turn the defender was actually quite good but his finish only found the base of the post rather than the net, with Bale’s goal still fresh in the mind, the fear of the late sting was a concern. Sky television wanted to let us know every couple of seconds that a Newcastle goal would send heroic mighty underdog Tottenham into the champions league.

How I loved having a corner in injury time, it made my heart feel oh so much better. We held on to deflate Tottenham and the Sky commentary team. Unlucky lads.

Typically Tottenham added some additional humour by celebrating what they thought was a Newcastle equaliser, watching them punching the air and hugging each other is a sight I won’t forget in a hurry.

So it is CL football for the 16th consecutive year and when you think that the club had amassed 26 points from the last 30 you really have to take your hat off to the manager and the coaching staff, but they are not the only one’s I want to thank.

We have to look back at where it started and it all began at White Hart Lane. What at the time seemed like a painful defeat turned out to be the result that rescued our season.

A few minutes of terribly poor defending saw both Bale and then Lennon waltz through our defence to gift our rivals all three points. It was the match that saw change, throwing away games like that couldn’t happen anymore. We had control of the game, started with fire, restricted Tottenham to little but not doing the basics threw away all three points before half time.

The players and coaching staff had words, had meetings and changes were made, not only with the approach but Koscielny and Fabianski were brought in to replace Vermaelen and Szczesny. The latter was lucky enough to get his place back due to injury but the former was not so lucky.

The team had Bayern Munich, possibly the best team in world football at present as a place to test the new system, victory by two clear goals gave the team confidence to go unbeaten until the end of the season. So while we thought our last defeat was the end of us it was in fact the beginning. I thank Tottenham, Adebayor and Villas-Boas for our wonderful negative spiral. Long may that continue.

I am not ashamed to be celebrating fourth place because I am not celebrating the position, I am celebrating the block it gives us to stand on before the season starts. It is easier to climb the wall of the new season when you start on a Champions League building block. Last season’s block was smashed by the departing van Persie and Alex Song this time we shouldn’t have anyone who can hit it hard enough to make any major dents. We can climb this mo’fo now as long as we do what we need to this summer.

We can attract the best players, we have money behind us so now let us go and reinforce a squad of players who are fighters. Our squad foundations are not as brittle as the Adebayor, Nasri, Bendtner pieces we had previously.

I am intrigued to know where we go from here in terms of footballing approach. Will Arsene build upon a safety first base or will added quality be reason to switch to a more offensive mind set. Plenty to think about for the next few months but for now.

Happy St Totteringham’s day, late again but better than never.