Eddie Howe's question to Newcastle United's players that epitomises mentality shift in Magpies dressing room

Howe arrived on Tyneside back in November with the club winless in the Premier League and deep in relegation trouble.

While the threat of relegation is still yet to be entirely alleviated, a seven match unbeaten run has seen The Magpies climb up to 14th in the table.

Saturday’s 2-0 win at Brentford was the side’s fourth victory in five matches as they moved four points clear of the bottom three.

Newcastle’s man of the match Ryan Fraser assisted the opening goal for Joelinton at the Brentford Community Stadium.

And the winger revealed the big question Howe asked the players prior to the match.

He told NUFC.co.uk: “The gaffer had a meeting before the game at the hotel and his quote was ‘Do you want to be hunted or be the hunter?’

“We would jump three places if we won and that little bit of motivation before we came to the ground was important. Now, we need to keep being the hunter and get up as far as we can.

“Although we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, we can still finish quite high up in the table.”

Howe’s quote sums up the mentality shift that has happened at Newcastle since his arrival. For too long, The Magpies were ‘the hunted’ – a side teams would look forward to playing in the Premier League as they put up little fight.

Runs of matches would pass Newcastle by with the club struggling to create chances or have decent spells of possession.

Now, the fear factor is coming back to Newcastle. The players, coaching staff and supporters are all united as one and a posing a sustained threat at one end and limiting their opponents to few meaningful chances at the other.

The momentum is building and it will have to continue to do so if Newcastle are going to guide themselves to safety, something that seemed unlikely just a few months ago.

While Howe has bolstered his squad with the January signings of Kieran Trippier, Chris Wood, Bruno Guimaraes, Matt Targett and Dan Burn, there are players who were already in the building who have also been like new signings under Howe.

Joelinton is certainly one of them since moving into a deeper midfield role and another is Fraser himself.

The 28-year-old has cemented his place in the Newcastle starting line-up under Howe and has impressed both on the left and right as he’s added goals and assists.

“It’s my job to [assist] but you go into the game thinking about your performance first - the willingness, running and doing the game plan the manager has given you and the rest comes on top of that,” he added.

“I played out on the left for the first time and the gaffer knows that’s my favourite position! Maxi [Allan Saint-Maximin] and Murph [Jacob Murphy] have been playing there and I got used to playing on the right.

“Me and Matt [Targett] had a very good relationship [at Brentford]. We trained just once with each other, on Friday, and as a full-back and wide man, I don’t think you would have noticed it would have been one day on the training pitch.”

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