Newcastle United zoomed into third place in the Premier League – and another step closer to qualifying for the Champions League, with a comfortable victory over Crystal Palace at St James’ Park.
Still without manager Eddie Howe, who continues to recover from pneumonia, the Magpies delivered a ruthless first-half display to race to a 4-0 lead and deal another blow to Crystal Palace’s own hopes of playing in Europe next season.
Jacob Murphy’s 14th-minute opener set Newcastle rolling as the winger’s right-foot strike from a very tight angle went in past Dean Henderson at his near post.
Palace had a chance to level when Newcastle’s goalkeeper, Nick Pope brought down Chris Richards inside the box and the referee pointed to the spot after being referred to the pitchside monitor by the video assistant referee (VAR), but the Newcastle goalkeeper redeemed himself with a comfortable save to stop Eberechi Eze’s spot-kick.
It proved to be costly as Newcastle doubled their lead in the 38th minute when Palace defender Marc Guehi, who also scored an own goal when these sides last met in November, turned a Harvey Barnes cross into his own net.
Barnes then scored another goal for Newcastle in first-half injury time – his fourth in three games – when he beat Maxence Lacroix with a brilliant footwork and then fired past Henderson.
Jacob Murphy’s cross in the eighth minute of added time was headed home by Fabian Schar to further extend the advantage and give the magpies more reasons to celebrate.
Alexander Isak, who had only scored once in the last six games, bagged his 25th goal of the season when Joelinton robbed possession from Lacroix and the Sweden striker planted a fine 25-yard finish into the bottom corner.
The success was Newcastle’s biggest of the season and moved them two points clear of Nottingham Forest and four behind second-placed Arsenal with six games left.
Eddie Howe is expected to return to the dugout for the home game against Ipswich Town on 26 April, but in his absence, assistants Jason Tindall and Graeme Jones have stuck with the tried and tested to maintain the club’s impressive run