Twelve years is a long time to wait for a derby day win, but when they are handed to you on a plate by your arch-enemy, who did everything possible to shoot themselves in the foot before the match too, victories do not come any sweeter than this.
Nobody needed this success more than Eddie Howe. Defeats to Sunderland have been the undoing of several Geordie bosses – Ruud Gullit and Alan Pardew to name a couple – with Howe under real pressure for the first time since taking charge having seen his side lose six of their last seven league games in the run-up to a derby clash that nobody really wanted.
