Eddie Howe & Ruud van Nistelrooy both highlight the same thing after Newcastle United 4-0 Leicester

A Jacob Murphy brace and second-half goals from Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak saw Newcastle claim a comfortable win at St James’ Park.

Newcastle’s first two goals came from set-piece routines with Gordon setting up Murphy for the opening goal and Lewis Hall heading the ball back across goal for Bruno Guimaraes to double Newcastle’s lead in the second half.

Following the match, Newcastle head coach Howe said: “It was a good performance today. The first goal was important. It took a well-worked set play to set the ball rolling, and the second goal was important too so we were able to express ourselves a little bit more.

"We’re disappointed we haven’t been able to show that more this season. Today was one of our better performances."

Leicester manager Ruud van Nistelrooy also highlighted the threat Newcastle posed from set pieces in his post-match comments.

"It was hard,” said the Leicester boss. “It was 1-0 at half-time. We were a bit lucky not to be down by more goals. It's costly when you concede in such standard set-piece situations. Then it was going to be hard to turn it around.”

Newcastle’s set-piece fortunes have turned around in recent weeks after a lack of goals from set-piece situations was highlighted earlier in the season.

“It's a team, never one person and Jason [Tindall] will be the first to say that,” Howe said about Newcastle’s set pieces. “Jason spends a lot of time on the set plays and Kieran Taylor our analyst spends a lot of time on set plays. We practice them individually, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't and they're important for us.

“When we'd created chances from open play we hadn't taken them but I don't care where the goals come from but they need to come from somewhere - there needs to be a regular source. Our set plays have been really good in recent weeks, congratulations to everyone who does the work on them and the players are the ones that have to do it.

“It was really good from Anthony [Gordon] and Sandro [Tonali] - Murph's finish is excellent.”