The Magpies bounced back from the defeat against Brentford with a 2-1 win over Man City
Tino Livramento of Newcastle United (left) and Savinho of Manchester City
Tino Livramento of Newcastle United (left) and Savinho of Manchester City(Image: Richard Lee/Shutterstock)
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Tino Livramento is confident that Newcastle United's win over Manchester City can kickstart the Magpies' up and down Premier League campaign.
Newcastle are still sitting in 14th place in the top-flight table, but Saturday's morale-boosting victory over City lifted the gloom on Tyneside.
Livramento's return to the starting XI after a two-month injury lay off boosted Newcastle and it was also a good sign for England boss Thomas Tuchel, who is eager to take the ex-Chelsea full-back to the World Cup.
Livramento said: "A lot of fans have been waiting for our season to kick start and I feel like this could be the turning point.
"It's a great result for the team, for the city.
"We've worked really hard. We had three or four really tough sessions, just working on things that the manager thought that we weren't doing in games. It definitely helped us, the international break, to fix a few things.
"When all the internationals come back as well, you know the quality that we have. There wasn't too much change coming into the game. We obviously rely on our fans a lot when we play at home.
"The energy that they bring, coming into the game very positive and obviously we got the result we wanted."
Livramento was injured two months ago against Arsenal in a 2-1 defeat when the star was hospitalised briefly.
He reflected: "It's not nice. But for me, I played a lot of football last season.
"I went away with the under-21s as well and came back after just two weeks of holiday.
"I played a lot at the start of the season as well so almost having that time out helped a little bit to rest my body and recover and work on things that I didn't have the time to in the off-season.
"Now I feel like I'm in a good place to rest and recover."
Harvey Barnes' double clinched it against Man City but after the game Howe was full of praise for both Livramento and fellow full-back Lewis Hall who started a game for the first time since September.
When asked if the return of the gliding full-backs gave the team a different dimension, Howe said: “I always say the team is formed by individuals.
"The individuals create the team and they've all got different attributes. "You saw today Lewis Hall's technical ability.
"Considering again the length of time he's been out and he's one that hadn't trained with us, so we hadn't really seen him during the international break, that was a great performance from him.
"Lewis took the ball really well under pressure, linked really well with Harvey, ran forward when he was able to in that first half before his legs started to tire.
"And then you've got Tino, who had stayed with us and had done a lot of hard work. I thought he physically looked unbelievable today considering his seven weeks out and a very high-level performance against a very dangerous opponent, so I did think they both played really well."
Newcastle now jet over to the south of France to face Marseille in the Champions League with Anthony Gordon described as "close" to a return according to Howe.
He said: “The acid test is Marseille and Everton.
"We have to now go away in the Champions League to a very difficult opponent and we need to perform.
"We’ll get very limited rest and that’s the biggest challenge we face, our schedule between now and the end of January is relentless.
"So, now the players have to look after themselves, we have to regroup and go again."