'Amazing' - Newcastle United receive major Bruno Guimaraes boost that Eddie Howe could not believe

Eddie Howe has praised Bruno Guimaraes’ ‘amazing’ discipline for Newcastle United to avoid a two-match Premier League suspension.

Three months ago, Guimaraes picked up his ninth Premier League booking of the season in a 3-2 defeat against Manchester City. The yellow card meant the Brazilian would have to go 11 Premier League matches without picking up another booking in order to avoid a two-match ban.

The 26-year-old served a one-match suspension earlier in the season after accumulating five yellow cards. Any player who receives five bookings inside a team's opening 19 Premier League matches serves a one-match ban.

And any player who picks up 10 bookings in a team's opening 32 Premier League matches serves a two-match ban. With Newcastle’s 4-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday being Newcastle’s 32nd league match of the season and Guimaraes didn’t pick up a yellow card in the match, he has avoided a ban.

And with Newcastle only having six games remaining this season, Guimaraes has also avoided a potential three-match ban served to any player who picks up 15 yellow cards over the course of a Premier League season, something that has never been done before.

Reflecting on Guimaraes avoiding suspension, Newcastle head coach Howe said: “A big relief, for him and for us.

“I was just saying earlier, we had a meeting a long time ago and he promised me he wouldn’t get booked, and I didn’t believe a word of it to be honest!

“Because we had so many games to go and his style of play is what it is, I didn’t think he could control that in the moments he needed to.

“But an amazing thing he’s done for the team because he knew if we lost him we’d be even more depleted. As you saw today, it is so important to us.”

Guimaraes played a key role in Newcastle’s win, releasing Anthony Gordon to set up Alexander Isak for the opening goal before setting up the Swedish striker himself in the second half. Despite Newcastle winning 4-0, there were still some nerves as far as Guimaraes’ discipline was concerned as tempers flared with Spurs’ Argentinian midfielder Giovani Lo Celso

When asked if he was nervous about a late booking, Howe laughed: “Absolutely! I thought the ironic thing was he’d get booked after the game which I could not believe so we had to calm him.”