Newcastle United fans must wish they could play matches on Halloween every year.
A year ago they thrashed neighbours Sunderland 5-1 at home not long after returning to the Premier League. They achieved arguably a more impressive feat last night by winning 3-1 at Stoke City.
The cliche surrounding trips to the Britannia Stadium is getting a bit tiresome - perhaps the local council could plant new signs on the roads into town declaring 'Welcome to Stoke: A tough place to come' - but a point earned from a trip to Staffordshire is not to be sniffed at for any side.
So for the Magpies to leave with all three, maintaining their unbeaten run in the league this season and moving them up to third gives further evidence that they are a decent proposition this season.
This is the club's best start to a top-flight campaign in 15 years, though it remains to be seen how well they can sustain it. This could be the return of the good times to St James' Park, or will we be watching The Premier League Years in a decade's time and say: "Ooh, blimey, Newcastle were third in November! What a funny season 2011/12 was."
Despite the sterling defensive efforts of all involved in black-and-white, striker Demba Ba grabbed the headlines by virtue of grabbing all three goals.
The Senegal international could have joined Stoke in the January transfer window, but the club's medical staff ruled he had a knee problem which was too much of a risk. In the spirit of Halloween, Ba came back on October 31 to haunt Stoke. As Potters manager Tony Pulis put it (prophetically, in light of the result), it was a "ticking time bomb."
Ba signed for West Ham instead, and upon the Hammers' relegation joined Newcastle. Since moving to England from Hoffenheim at the start of the year he has scored 15 goals in 21 Premier League appearances.
It may not quite be in the same league as Sheffield United passing on a young Diego Maradona back in the 1970s, but seeing a striker he passed on scoring a perfect hat-trick against his team in his own back yard must have stuck in Pulis's craw somewhat.
Still, you can understand Pulis's caution when it came to signing a striker with a dodgy knee - he already has Mamady Sidibe on his books. The Mali forward has had four knee operations in the last three years, and has not played a first-team game for Stoke since August 2010. Last Wednesday, while playing a reserve game as he mounted his latest attempt at a comeback, the 31-year-old damaged a knee tendon.
You can hardly blame him for alarm bells ringing when he saw Ba's medical report, but that will come as little comfort when Pulis reflects on the one that got away beating his team.
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Speaking of the fabled 'wet weekday night in Stoke', there are some words in football that are used far too often.
Words such as 'legend', 'banter' and 'Barton' are all given far more of an airing than anyone could surely ever want.
Another such word is crisis, which has been applied to both Arsenal and Chelsea of late.
A 5-3 win at Stamford Bridge may not make them title contenders overnight, and they are over-reliant on one player, but eight wins from their last nine games suggests they can at least downgrade to DEFCON 3 ('medium readiness') for the time being.
Chelsea have suffered back-to-back league defeats for the first time in a year, both to London rivals, and their captain is currently under police investigation, but it is hardly the end of days at Stamford Bridge.
It will take time for Andre Villas-Boas to install the more open, attacking blueprint he has been hired to replicate from his all-conquering time at Porto, especially at a club based so crucially on obdurate functionality. The Portuguese manager, who has been named on the Ballon d'Or coach of the year shortlist today, will really have to go some to beat Luiz Felipe Scolari's record for shortest tenure at Chelsea under Roman Abramovich.
In spite of the greatly exaggerated reports of their respective demises, both clubs can secure a place in the knockout phase of the Champions League this evening.
The Gunners host Marseille at the Emirates knowing that a second win over Didier Deschamps's side in two weeks will see them through to the last 16. Chelsea travel to Genk aware that another Group E victory over the Belgian side would put them through if Bayer Leverkusen win at Valencia.
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger acknowledged Marseille have experienced a similar upturn in form to his own side in recent weeks.
He said: "They have gained in confidence in between the two games like we have so it should be an interesting tie. But for us it's an opportunity to qualify and of course we want to take this chance."
Villas-Boas, wary that his management was coming under the kind of scrutiny he may not have anticipated so early in his Chelsea career, will not waver from his game plan.
He said: "I think you have to be frank and say that our progress was stopped in a disastrous week for us in terms of results. But you cannot say it's all gone to ruins. That's not true. There is, of course, back-to-back defeats in the Premier League, which take their toll in terms of the league table. But that doesn't mean that what's being built is wrong, that the philosophy is wrong, and that we're not on the right track. We are on the right track. What we are building is still right."
Both managers would like to see the European job done at the first opportunity, so they can temporarily rid themselves of such distractions and concentrate on keeping that word 'crisis' out of their domestic affairs.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I have very strong feelings on the matter, but in the interests of fairness and not wishing to prejudice what I am sure will be a very thorough enquiry by the FA, this will be my last comment on the subject until the enquiry is concluded." - After submitting a statement to the Football Association, QPR defender Anton Ferdinand says he has "strong feelings" regarding alleged racist abuse by Chelsea captain John Terry.
FOREIGN VIEW: A football club in Mexico has decided to replace the players' names on the back of their shirts with their Twitter handles instead. The unique move sees Mexican Primera Division side Jaguares de Chiapas's star players put their twitter addresses underneath their numbers along with the Twitter handle of the club sponsor.
COMING UP: Live coverage of all eight of this evening's Champions League fixtures, including Arsenal v Marseille and Genk v Chelsea.
Before that, why not enjoy our video round-up of what was hot and what was not from the latest round of Premier League matches, or check out The Whistleblower's verdict on some of the weekend's key refereeing decisions?