Newcastle United's Demba Ba (right) scores the opening goal past Aston Villa's Ciaran Clark during their English Premier League match in Newcastle yesterday. Newcastle won 2-1.

Substitute Papiss Cisse scored on his debut to give Newcastle United a 2-1 win over Aston Villa yesterday and push the hosts up to fifth in the Premier League.

Fellow Senegalese Demba Ba picked up where he left off before heading to the African Nations Cup by scoring another goal, firing in on 30 minutes after teammate Ryan Taylor had been injured in the box.

Taylor's treatment led to substantial first-half injury time and Villa used it to its advantage with Robbie Keane netting his 150th English league goal and third since joining on loan from Los Angeles Galaxy.

Cisse, who came on for the injured Leon Best after 14 minutes, won the game midway through the second half with a shot from the edge of the area as the Newcastle faithful immediately took the former Freiburg striker to their hearts.

On Saturday, Manchester City rediscovered its attacking verve, beating Fulham 3-0 to maintain its perfect home record and keep Manchester United at arm's length in the title race.

City's 12th straight league victory at Etihad Stadium left the leaders three points clear of United.

Argentina forward Sergio Aguero converted a penalty for his 15th league goal of the season and also set up strike partner Edin Dzeko as City battled through heavy snow that afflicted the majority of games in the English program.

Fulham defender Chris Baird scored an own goal to compound the misery for Fulham, which was the first team to take points off City this campaign by rallying to a 2-2 draw in the reverse fixture in September.

City has struggled for form and luck in January, losing to both Sunderland and Everton in the league and getting dumped out of both domestic cup competitions.

Elsewhere, Sunderland's impressive run under new manager Martin O'Neill continued with a 1-0 win at Stoke, while Wolverhampton Wanderers capitalized on the sending-off of Djibril Cisse on his home debut for Queens Park Rangers to rally to a 2-1 win and climb out of the relegation zone.

Bolton dropped into the bottom three with a 0-2 loss at Norwich, Swansea rallied to defeat West Bromwich Albion 2-1 and bottom team Wigan held Everton to a 1-1 draw.