By Matt Jones
December 17 2005

Newcastle United 1 - 0 Arsenal. Post match reaction from Magpies' striker Shola Ameobi, who made his 100th start for the home side on Saturday. Speaking to the Official Newcastle United website, Shola said:

"To make 100 starts is a nice milestone for me.

"I've had my doubters over the years, and at times it hasn't been easy.

"To reach the landmark is a proud moment for me, and beating Arsenal makes it even more sweet.

"It's moments like this you look ahead to when you make your debut.

"To make 100 appearances for this club is no small feat, and now I've reached it I'll look forward to hopefully staying in the team and reaching more milestones.

"Each one of us gave everything, and I think we deserve a lot of credit for that.

"Look at Scotty Parker - he gave everything for us and ended up going off with his mouth bleeding and suffering from concussion. That epitomises the spirit here.

"We know we have been hammered in the press, but we try not to let that affect us. You can't. You just have to believe in ourselves, and we do at this club.

"We've listened to the criticism, but as I said we've always believed in ourselves and I think you saw that against Arsenal.

"To get any points against Arsenal is a great result. We knew we had to play well, and we did.

"They went down to 10 men, and we kept putting them under pressure and we got the goal so we were all delighted.

"We pushed against the 10 men, and scored a fantastic goal through Nobby. It's another clean sheet. The defence have been hammered, but give them all the credit today because they were fantastic.

"We are all proud of ourselves, but we have to build on that now.

"The thing for us now is consistency. We have proved we can do it, now we have to try and match that every week.

"We set the standard there, but we have to rise to it every game now.

"We will enjoy it, but come Monday we will be back at the training ground aiming to push on next weekend at West Ham."