Newcastle United supporters had to wait a long time to witness a Premier League win at Carrow Road, but you suspect the 400-mile round trip was worth it. It was Newcastle's biggest Premier League win since 2020 and the 3-0 victory marked the first time the Magpies had won four top-flight fixtures in a row since 2018 as Howe's side moved up to ninth place in the table.
The away end were able to relax in the second half for one of the few times this season as they repeatedly urged their side to 'take the p---' and greeted completed passes with shouts of 'ole!'.
It is easy to forget that Newcastle had made a sluggish start but when Howe's side moved through the gears and produced their best move of the game, tellingly, the visitors took Norwich apart in the 37th minute. Sean Longstaff's ball over the top picked out Jacob Murphy down the right and the winger played a clever one-two with Emil Krafth before passing to Allan Saint-Maximin inside the area. Saint-Maximin, under pressure, attempted to square it to the unmarked Longstaff but the ball eventually fell to Joelinton, who lashed it into the net.
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Just as Norwich's heads dropped after that goal, after the Canaries played with real fight in the early stages, Newcastle gained a second wind as the visitors moved the ball around confidently. Bruno's defence-splitting through ball soon sent Murphy clear in the 41st minute and the winger managed to squeeze a cross to the back post, where Joelinton was there to double Newcastle's advantage.
It was a knockout blow right before half-time and Norwich still looked a little punch-drunk after the break as Tim Krul's sloppy pass was seized upon by Bruno Guimaraes in the 49th minute. There were times in a previous era where Newcastle players would have panicked in that situation, but Bruno took full advantage and merely rolled the ball before dinking the 'keeper with an outrageous finish.
That goal epitomised the personality the Brazilian and, in turn, Newcastle played with at times in the second half. The influential Bruno found a team-mate with 55 of his 60 passes on Saturday and no other starter had a higher pass completion rate (91.7%). When it comes to those medium range passes hit between 15 and 30 yards, remarkably, all of Bruno's 29 attempts were accurate.
Newcastle players, as a whole, completed 82% of their passes on Saturday. That may not seem a ridiculously high number but, to put it into context, only 67% of Newcastle's passes were accurate against Leicester City just six days previously when the Magpies assumed a different role in the game and had less of the ball at home.
Newcastle showed the other side of their game in that win versus Leicester and those off the ball improvements have given Howe a base to work with moving forward. Howe may have made his name at Bournemouth for playing on the front foot, but the head coach has adapted at Newcastle and made the black-and-whites a smarter and nastier outfit off the ball. You can be sure Liverpool will see that progress when Jurgen Klopp's side are 'welcomed' to St James' on Saturday.
Once leaky Newcastle have only conceded more than one goal in a game on two occasions since the 4-1 defeat in the reverse fixture at Anfield in December and Howe's side have managed to keep six clean sheets during that period. Rarely has Martin Dubravka been less busy during his five years at the club.
"Give credit to the guys because I have less work than in the previous games," the Newcastle goalkeeper told ChronicleLive. "That's how the players improved. It's easier for me now to be there and enjoy a bit of the game as well."
Saturday's 3-0 win at Norwich was Dubravka's latest shutout and while the standard of opposition has to be taken into account, even if the bottom of the table Canaries were fighting for their lives, this was just the sort of fixture Newcastle would not have won so comfortably, or maybe not even won full stop, not so long ago. It was Newcastle's first Premier League win at Carrow Road since 1994, after all.
Rarely do Newcastle have more possession, shots and corners than the opposition on the road like they did at the weekend but if Howe's side are to move to the next level in the coming years, these are the sorts of games they will need to consistently dominate over the course of a campaign. Saturday, perhaps, offered the first little glimpse.
"Some of the football that we've played is really good and maybe something we haven't done often enough this season," Howe told Sky Sports after the game. "We've been playing under a huge pressure of trying to stay in the league and we've got a lot of results playing resilient, organised football.
"But today was maybe the first time that the shackles came off a little bit and the confidence with the ball was very high. We thought we saw a glimpse of the future there hopefully."
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