12 mins Joelinton's collision with an opponent in the centre circle allowed Bruno Guimaraes to take possession, playing an expansive pass out to his right rather than attempting to thread the ball forward to the advancing Joe Willock or Will Osula.

The pass sailed over the head of Ferdi Kadioglu and bounced in front of Jacob Murphy on the front right hand corner of the Albion area. Visiting custodian Bart Verbruggen had dashed off his line, but mistimed his attempt at intercepting the ball and instead slid into Murphy outside the box.

With the crowd baying for a foul, Murphy managed to regain his footing and swept over a fine right-footed cross just in front of the byline, allowing Will Osula to find space between two defenders before nodding the ball into the unguarded Gallowgate End net from around five yards out. 1-0

24 mins Guimaraes sent over a right-footed flag kick from the Strawberry Corner, dropping it on the front corner of the six yard box for Dan Burn to rise and glance a header into the far side of the net.

While a group of his colleagues had positioned themselves in the six yard box and rushed towards the near post as the ball was delivered, the scorer had remained further away from goal, arriving at his scoring position with marker Pascal Gross trailing in his wake. 2-0

Half time: Newcastle 2 Brighton 0

61 mins An intricate series of first-time passes by the Seagulls ended with Danny Welbeck rolling the ball forward into the United box for Jack Hinshelwood to get away from Malick Thiaw and slot the ball left-footed beyond Nick Pope from the left side of the six yard box into the far side of the net. 2-1

90+5 mins Two home substitutes combined - with a little help from the visitors - Yoane Wissa gifted the ball when Jan Paul van Hecke fumbled his attempted back pass to Verbruggen and went over outside the left hand side of the Brighton area.

Wissa carried the ball goalwards as Verbruggen came off his line to meet him, a combination of the two players seeing the ball end up at the feet of Harvey Barnes, some 12 yards from goal. With Verbruggen lunging towards him, the Newcastle man went to his left and shot powerfully over the head of Maxim De Cuyper and into the roof of the net. 3-1

Full time: Newcastle 3 Brighton 1

Eddie Howe said:

"Jacob Murphy is an excellent crosser of a football. He's created countless goals for us over the years. Will (Osula) still had a bit to do and he did it well. Second goal, it's great to see us back in form from set plays.

"I accept my fate because I've picked it (the team) in good honesty with the intention to win the game. There's no politics involved with me, it's what gives us, in my opinion, the best chance to win the game.

"I went with players I can really trust and I know can handle this type of atmosphere and pressure. Those players have never let me down & they didn’t today.

"I’m not picking the team on emotion, I’m picking the team to win the game. I wanted pace up front with Osula and (Joe) Willock, and I wanted height in the team too."

On Yasir Al-Rumayyan's attendance:

"He spoke with the players after the game and spoke really well about his plans for the future and how committed he and everyone is to the football club, long-term growth and exciting times ahead. So that was great to see."

Bruno Guimaraes added:

"In the changing room before the game we knew today was important for us, chasing European football for next season.

"The points are crucial, we keep dreaming and believing. We are looking up not down. We can still play European football next season, we must win the next three games."

Fabian Herzeler said:

"We dominated the game. We started the game well, had two good chances and then Newcastle scored out of nowhere. Then the second goal is from a set-piece and we lost our overall structure.

"But we always had the feeling that we could win this game, we created so much. We shouldn’t have conceded so easily, we should manage the key moments of the game better.

"On the other side we created so many chances so we have to be more ruthless. When we focus on the performance, you don’t see a lot of teams dominating here like we did. We will take away the positives, we will analyse the game too, because in certain key moments we weren’t at our standards, we have to show personality and character and then we try to bounce back.

"I think you could feel it from when we created the first chance, you could feel it on the pitch and also in the stadium that everyone felt like we were there to take this game. We were unlucky, we missed chances, we weren’t able to manage the key moments well.

"We can definitely defend better as a team, we can manage the key moments better, but if we focus on how we tried to play our football, I think the players did everything they could do. They always had the belief they could win this game, so we will take the positives away."

On swapping his wingers over at half time:

"We gave their full-backs a different job to do – I don’t think it’s an easy job to adapt to one winger and then have to face another one. I think we gave Yankuba Minteh the space to be successful.

"Sometimes you have good days, sometimes you can have bad days but you must always show effort and that’s what he did. He still created danger, just not the danger that we’d hoped. On the other side, Kaoru Mitoma was good, he was in the game, he liked the role and he did it quite well.

"It wasn’t the offensive part that lost us the game, but we have to keep going.

On Newcastle's height advantage:

"When you’re smaller than another team, you have to make sure you use your body in a good way – we are not known as a physical team, but we can be aggressive and we pressed intensely. I won’t make an excuse about this."