I was absolutely blown away by what I saw late on as Newcastle United hammered Manchester United - opinion

It's strange that yesterday I watched Newcastle United batter Manchester United 4-1 at St James' Park and I'm not still bouncing off the walls as if we'd won a cup.

As a man in his forties, I remember all too well the feeling of those rare victories over Manchester United in their prime. The 5-0 drubbing at St James' Park, which culminated in Philippe Albert's sublime lob over Peter Schmeichel, still lives rent-free in my head, and I remember exactly where I was and who I watched it with (R.I.P. Kenny Bloke).

Times have changed so much that we would be well within our rights as Newcastle fans to be disappointed that we only bagged four goals yesterday, it was about as routine a victory as we've seen all season.

However, the shift our lads put in was far from routine. Aside from the woeful distribution off the feet of Nick Pope, I'm struggling to find anything to whinge about today. I had mates who felt we were second-best in the first half, and while we weren't amazing, I never felt like the result would be anything other than a Newcastle win. Me, who is terrified of being confident in case it backfires, I was never anything but confident. It's a strange feeling.

There were some top performances from the Newcastle United lads on Sunday

There were a lot of things that impressed me about our players yesterday. Jacob Murphy seemed to turn into Ronaldinho as he twisted the Man United defence inside out.

Joelinton refused to be knocked off the ball no matter how many players bounced off him, Bruno Guimaraes was pulling all the strings while Tino Livramento continues to make me question what his actual position is as he seems even better on the left than he is on the right.

Obviously, Harvey Barnes stole the show with two excellent goals and he still gets my Player of the Match vote, but he only just pipped Sandro Tonali.

Is Sandro Tonali Newcastle's best player?

All of the constant speculation about his future and horrendous tabloids using his name to sell the latest Italian betting scandal story really hasn't affected him.

His goal was a thing of beauty, the set up from Alexander Isak was stunning but Tonali's controlled volley into the bottom corner was absolutely sublime.

And yet, it was something as simple as a run that really blew my mind. With just a couple of minutes left in the game, Tonali picked up the ball deep in his own half and sprinted to the Man United box as if it was the first minute of the match.

It's not the first time we've seen him do something similar, but the distance he covered this time, at the pace he was going so close to the full-time whistle was astonishing. Alexander Isak may be our most valuable player, but there's a strong case to be made that Sandro Tonali is our best player.