Jacob Murphy scored twice as Newcastle United rediscovered their killer touch to condemn Leicester City to a 4-0 Premier League defeat at St James’ Park.
Murphy rounded off a brilliantly worked set-piece to open the scoring and, after Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak had put the game out of sight, wrapped up victory with the fourth.
It was just a third win in 12 league games for the Magpies and eased some of the pressure on head coach Eddie Howe, while Ruud van Nistelrooy suffered his first defeat since taking charge of Leicester.
In truth, the margin could have been significantly bigger on an afternoon when Howe’s men were utterly dominant in front of a crowd of 52,235 at St James’ Park as they set themselves up nicely for Wednesday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final clash with Brentford on Tyneside.
Foxes goalkeeper Mads Hermansen had to make the game’s first save, a stunning one-handed stop to keep out Anthony Gordon’s powerfully struck eighth-minute shot after the England winger had worked his way into the box.
Joelinton twice fired firmly at Hermansen after exchanging passes with Gordon down the left, and although Lewis Hall had to block Bilal El Khannouss’ shot after Hamza Choudhury had run into space and picked him out, the traffic remained largely one-way.
The game was being played almost exclusively inside the Leicester half, and the hosts finally got their reward on the half-hour mark with a move straight from the training ground.
Hall played a corner short to the influential Sandro Tonali, who slipped it inside to Gordon and looked on as he cut the ball back to Murphy to slide it first-time past Hermansen and into the bottom corner.
It should have been 2-0 eight minutes before the break after Tonali and Joelinton combined to carve a path through the heart of the City defence, but Isak’s controlling touch proved significantly better than his finish, which allowed the keeper to save comfortably.
Hermansen was replaced by Danny Ward at the break, but he was picking the ball out of his net within two minutes from another fine set-piece move when the unmarked Hall sent Gordon’s free-kick back across goal for Guimaraes to head home.
Ward’s afternoon took a further turn for the worse just four minutes after his arrival when Conor Coady could only help Hall’s cross on to Isak, who headed into the gaping net for his seventh goal in nine games.
Murphy might have doubled his tally by rounding off Isak’s mesmerising 52nd-minute run, but he shot just too high.
The visitors threatened briefly, with Kasey McAteer twice taking aim at Martin Dubravka’s goal in quick succession, before Isak drilled a 57th-minute attempt straight at Ward after he, Joelinton, Guimaraes and Murphy had caused havoc once again.
Murphy did apply the required finish to Isak’s inch-perfect pass to make it 4-0 on the hour and allow Howe to use his bench to rest key men.
Substitute Harvey Barnes was twice denied by Ward as he attempted to increase his former club’s suffering, but the win had long been secured.
