Eddie Howe gives honest Bruno Guimaraes assessment after controversial Newcastle United incident at Fulham

Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe gave an honest assessment of his side's 2-0 FA Cup win at Fulham on Saturday evening.

Goals in either half from Sean Longstaff and Dan Burn saw The Magpies progress to the fifth round of the competition for only the second time since 2006. Newcastle's first goal was the subject of some controversy with the ball appearing to strike off Bruno Guimaraes' arm before falling to Longstaff.

Fulham head coach Marco Silva felt Guimaraes handled the ball but refused to comment on whether he thought a correct decision had been made by referee Jarred Gillet to allow the goal.

A VAR check did not overturn the decision with the laws of the game in favour of Newcastle even though Howe also admitted the ball hit off Guimaraes' arm.

"I don't want to be too clever with this," Howe told The Gazette when asked about his side's opener. "In an ideal world, I don't want to see handball in those situations whether that's for or against me.

"As long as the arm is not raised and not away from the body and Bruno's, I've only seen it live but it was by his side. It probably did hit his arm.

"You might get a different answer if we were on the receiving end but I like to see goals like that given to be honest."

On the match itself, Howe admitted it wasn't his side's best performance after a two-week winter break.

"It was an excellent result, if not our finest performance," he said.

"We had to be really resilient, and scored at an important moment before half-time. That settled us down, we were much better in that period with a counter-attack threat and much improved I thought.

"Sean [Longstaff] is capable off both feet, he is a great ball striker and showed with that finish. Dan’s goal was a massive moment in the match, we are a threat from set plays with the height we have."

"Going into the game I thought we would but sometimes in cup games that does not happen. You have to be resilient and find a way through. That was a morale-boosting win for us after the City game and hopefully that gives us confidence going into the Aston Villa match."