Barnes wraps up Newcastle win against Brighton to ease pressure on Howe

Goals from Will Osula, Dan Burn and Harvey Barnes gave Newcastle a 3-1 victory over Brighton

Brighton limbered up for this trip to Tyneside by working out with an acclaimed German cage fighter. The idea was that a spot of mixed martial arts training would toughen up Fabian Hürzeler’s players at set pieces and enable them to pack a collective punch far too powerful for Newcastle to resist.

Happily for Eddie Howe and his players it did not quite work out like that. As Yasir al-Rumayyan, Newcastle’s chair, and a delegation of his colleagues from the club’s majority owners, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, looked on from the director’s box, Howe’s team finally ended a debilitating run of five straight defeats.

If an ultimately somewhat nervy win banished any fears about Newcastle potentially becoming sucked into a relegation skirmish – not to mention bolstering Howe’s fragile job security – it hardly enhanced Brighton’s still reasonably bright hopes of European qualification.

After choruses of “Eddie Howe’s black and white army” had greeted the final whistle Rumayyan enjoyed a kickabout on the pitch with Newcastle’s minority owner, Jamie Reuben. The chair then posed with the team for a triumphant victory photograph in the dressing room.

“That was a massive win, so emotional on so many levels,” said Howe who revealed Rumayyan had spoken “very well” to the squad about the club’s extensive future ambitions. “It was massive to hear people chanting my name. I can’t thank them enough.”

Given that he spent much of last Thursday at a Northumberland country house hotel being quizzed, forensically, about Newcastle’s disappointing form by PIF officials, his relief was almost palpable.

“When you don’t win games there’s always pressure,” admitted Howe. “I didn’t want to let people down. I didn’t get eight hours sleep last night. That’s very unusual for me but there was a lot of anxiety.”

Brighton, unbeaten since early March, began by monopolising the ball but as a former Newcastle manager, Alan Pardew, once put it: “Possession can be overrated.” Sure enough, the home side took a 12th-minute lead when Bart Verbruggen’s charged, unwisely, at Jacob Murphy as he advanced down the right.

When Verbruggen then lost his footing he accidentally caught Murphy but the suddenly stumbling winger managed, creditably, to stay on his feet and cross to the far post.

All that remained was for Will Osula, once again preferred to Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa as Newcastle’s lone striker on a day when Howe started with five of his six summer signings on the bench, to head into the empty net.

In the 24th minute another header, scored by Dan Burn this time, doubled the home advantage after the 6ft 7in England defender dodged his marker before meeting a Bruno Guimarães corner.

If Burn’s contentious selection at left-back ahead of Lewis Hall appeared vindicated, Guimarães’s comeback has breathed new life into Newcastle and may have come just in time to keep his manager in post.

Nonetheless the watching Saudi delegation cannot have been overly impressed by the subsequent moment when a poor Nick Pope clearance flew straight to Jack Hinshelwood and cannoned back off a post.

While Pope’s persistent weakness with the ball at his feet offered Hürzeler encouragement, the sometime England goalkeeper would also make three, stellar, victory preserving saves.

Moreover as fluidly and incisively as Brighton, and Kaoru Mitoma in particular, moved the ball, their decision to play such a high defensive line against Osula’s pace seemed increasingly high risk.

Yet if Howe made the right call in starting Osula, things were not totally straightforward. When a rushed, Pope clearance prefaced Hinshelwood and Danny Welbeck playing a deft one-two, the goalkeeper had no answer to Hinshelwood’s resultant shot and the atmosphere inside St James’ Park turned distinctly nervous.

Newcastle have a nasty habit of conceding late goals and, despite a switch to a back five after the introduction of Hall, Harvey Barnes and Wissa – who would miss a late sitter – they lived dangerously as Brighton spurned some highly inviting opportunities to equalise.

No matter; deep in stoppage time, Barnes lashed home Newcastle’s third goal and the flaws increasingly apparent during the course of a less than convincing second half were camouflaged.

“We dominated the game,” said Hürzeler, who had an angry exchange with Howe’s assistant Jason Tindall at the final whistle. “We created so many chances and we were unlucky but we didn’t manage the key moments.”