'No way' - Eddie Howe disagrees with Wolves manager's claim about Newcastle United after 3-0 win

Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe admitted his side were set-up differently as they got back to winning ways at St James' Park against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon put Newcastle 2-0 up at half-time before substitute Tino Livramento wrapped up the three points with his first goal for the club in stoppage time. It's Newcastle's first win at St James' Park in 2024 and first Premier League clean sheet in nine matches.

Wolves saw the majority of the ball in the game despite Newcastle emerging as convincing winners in the end.

Following the match, Wolves head coach Gary O'Neil said: "There is no way Newcastle let us have the ball, the reason why we had it was because we showed quality.

"I know Newcastle, I know Eddie Howe. The reason we had the ball was because of how good we were on the ball." "I thought our structure was better than theirs, caused them more problems than theirs did ours."

But Howe disagreed, suggesting it was part of his side's game plan to sit back and play Wolves on the counter.

"A big win for us," Howe said. "We hadn't won at home here in 2024 and our home form has been so good since I've been here. Our home form has been the bedrock of our success so to come back from our first wobble is great.

"It was a slight tweak from our normal way of playing. We analyse our opposition like we do always and I know there's a lot of people that say we play the same way every week and I can assure you that's not the case, there's always tweaks and that was one today to play maybe a little bit more transitional."

When asked directly about O'Neil's comments and whether it was a tactic to sit deep and let Wolves have the ball, Howe added: "Yeah, we changed things tactically."