Christian Atsu was the hero for Newcastle United as they remained third on the Championship standings on the weekend.

The Ghanaian attacking midfielder, on loan from Chelsea, played a key role as a right winger in Rafa Benitez's side, scoring a quality winner late in the first half in the Magpies' 1-0 win at Rotherham United.

It was former Everton, AFC Bournemouth and Malaga loanee Atsu's first league start for Newcastle.

The 24-year-old was replaced by Matt Ritchie in the 67th minute but feels his performance could be enough to keep in the Toon's starting line-up after the international break.

"Everyone is working to get in the starting lineup, because everyone wants to help the team, and the only way to help the team is to be on the field," Atsu told nufcTV.

"That's what I want to do - I'm really working hard to be in the team.

"We have a lot of good competition and it's very good to have competition in the team. Everyone is given the opportunity to prove themselves, so it's good for the team going forward.

"I'm very happy that I scored and I'm happy that the team won, which is more important. I'm very happy that I scored, and it was a great goal for the team - we needed this one.

"I think we created a lot of chances for us to score and we could have killed the game in the second half when we had these chances. From set pieces, we created chances too but it's good that we got the three points."

Atsu's Chelsea colleague Izzy Brown played a full 90 minutes for the Millers in his role just behind striker Danny Ward.

Check out the highlights below thanks to Rotherham's official YouTube channel:

Team work #GodIsTheReason#GodWin#NUFChttps://t.co/O1ILlNzDlG
— Christian Atsu (@ChristianAtsu20) October 1, 2016