Eddie Howe’s side dismantled Leicester at St James’ Park on Saturday, with the hapless visitors fortunate to only concede four.
And it’s little surprise that it was Jason Tindall’s name being chanted from the stands for much of the second half, for the assistant manager’s training ground work with the players worked a treat. Jacob Murphy’s first half opener and Bruno’s decisive second goal just after the break both came from wonderfully worked set-piece routines.
In a blistering start to the second half, Bruno’s header two minutes after the restart was followed by a deserved goal for Alexander Isak three minutes later. And the brilliant Isak then teed up Murphy for his second and Newcastle’s fourth on the hour mark.
That was the last of the goals but Newcastle didn’t settle for what they had. They poured forward and finished the game having peppered Leicester’s goal with 27 shots. At the other end, Martin Dubravka, making his first Premier League start in place of the injured Nick Pope hardly touched the ball.
What a boost this much-needed win will be for Newcastle ahead of Wednesday’s Carabao Cup quarter final against Brentford. And on the league front, it gets the Magpies rolling again after four winless games.
In his programme notes Howe told of his delight at Newcastle “rediscovering their best attacking instincts and being more ruthless” after five goals in two games, but that wasn’t the case in the first half an hour.
After recovering from a nervous opening, the Magpies made and missed a string of chances. Gordon forced a fine one-handed save out of Mads Hermansen, Dan Burn and Bruno both headed over and Joelinton went close.
Two glorious chances also fell the way of Murphy, who twice got his angles wrong and fired wide of the far post. But he made no mistake at the third of asking, firing home from the edge of the box after a brilliantly engineered corner saw Lewis Hall play short to Tonali, who played it into the path of the overlapping Gordon to cross.
It was no surprise that Gordon was heavily involved. The forward, who this week told of his love for the club and his desire to “just play football” on the back of the lingering Liverpool transfer talk, was outstanding, at the heart of all of Newcastle’s good work.
Isak was also causing Leicester no end of problems but was guilty of spurning a huge opportunity to give United breathing space shortly after the opener when he was played in one-on-one by Joelinton but his tame effort was straight at Hermansen.
Leicester only managed a single touch in Newcastle’s box in the opening 44 minutes before an attacking spell which came to nothing just before the break.
Danny Ward replaced Hermansen at half-time and touched the ball twice in the first four minutes of the second half – on both occasions picking it out of the net. The key second goal was as well worked as the first, Gordon flighting the ball towards Hall, whose header across goal was nodded in by Bruno.
Isak then got the goal he deserved when he got on the end of Gordon’s deflected cross, before teeing up the second for Murphy and fourth for the hosts. The striker twisted Jannick Vestergaard in knots and played it into the path of Murphy to finish clinically.
It was a relentless and ruthless start to the second half and allowed Howe to turn to his bench, Harvey Barnes, Kieran Tippier and Sean Longstaff all introduced just after the hour mark for Murphy, Livramento and Bruno.
Howe will have wished Joelinton was one of those he withdrew, for the midfielder picked up his fifth yellow card of the season soon after and will now miss the Brentford cup tie.