A confident Newcastle United side made it four wins in a row in all competitions and moved into the Premier League’s top five with a 3-0 victory over Leicester City, pushing the Foxes even closer to relegation.
With the drop back to the Championship looking more and more likely, Leicester were under huge pressure to finally give their fans something to smile about. But any hope was quickly crushed as Newcastle scored just two minutes in. After a lovely team move, Joelinton passed to Harvey Barnes on the left, who set up Tino Livramento on the overlap. Livramento crossed the ball to the far post, where Jacob Murphy tapped it in.
Just nine minutes later, it was 2-0. Fabian Schär smashed a shot from his own half that hit the crossbar, and Murphy was there again to score from the rebound.
Leicester were clearly stunned and struggled to do anything in response, while Newcastle looked dangerous throughout the first half. A third goal came in the 34th minute, when Joelinton’s shot was pushed away by Leicester goalkeeper Mads Hermansen, and Barnes was in the right place to knock the ball into an empty net.
Leicester had now gone 21 goals without scoring and had lost their last seven home league games without finding the net. Even just getting one goal back would’ve lifted the fans, but it wasn’t to be. Newcastle could have scored again when Dan Burn headed wide from a corner. With the game well in hand, Eddie Howe rested key players, taking off Joelinton, Bruno Guimarães, and Alexander Isak just after the hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a4RThKWjio
On a tough night for Leicester, the only highlight was when Ruud van Nistelrooy gave 15-year-old Jeremy Monga his debut – making him the second-youngest player ever in Premier League history. Newcastle saw out the rest of the game comfortably, keeping a clean sheet and stretching their unbeaten run against Leicester to six games, leaving the Foxes 15 points from safety.
