Newcastle United boss Alan Pardew is thrilled with his team as they continue their unbeaten start to the season by beating Everton 2-1 to go second in the Premier League table.

Pardew thanks the St James’ Park crowd for their support and hails “one of our best defensive displays” as his team withstood Everton’s second-half fightback to take all three points.

Newcastle’s fans will get a chance to assess their team’s progress when they travel to Manchester for their next two Premier League games, taking on City first and then United.

“Staying unbeaten is a great achievement but it’s happened because everybody working here believes in each other,” he said. “All my players, all my staff at the training ground trust each other. That belief is brilliant; we’re very proud.”

The suspicion is that such nirvana cannot endure, especially with games against Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea impending, but the manager was not minded to spoil the mood.

“I’m not here to dampen expectations – let the fans enjoy it,” he said. “If they want to dream of the Champions league, let them dream on. It’s fantastic.”

Elsewhere City stayed top of the Premier League after a 3-2 win over QPR. United and Chelsea kept the pressure on with tight 1-0 wins a piece but Liverpool, again under Kenny Dalglish, struggled at home.

They could only manage a 0-0 draw – their fourth stalemate at home this season – much to the frustration of Dalglish.

The Scot said: “The performance was disappointing. Swansea played the way we would have expected them to play, but we certainly never played the way we expected ourselves to play.

“The most important thing for us is that we’re creating chances and as long as we continue to do that, as long as we’re not afraid to get in there and miss chances, we’ll be alright.

“But we seem to be going through this after every game. I think we must be getting closer if the goalkeeper was tested a few times because usually we’re missing the target.

“That’s 11 times we’ve hit the post or the bar this season, but sometimes the most important thing is to make the chances, the next important thing is to put them away.

“We just need to keep working at it and keep getting in there, but we never got in there as often today as we did in past games and that was the disappointing thing for us as well.”