Aston Villa 1-3 Newcastle United - Eddie Howe's Mags banish another curse

Newcastle United swept their poor away form aside with a resounding victory at Villa Park, their first since 2013.

The Magpies hadn't even scored at Villa Park since the teams met in the Championship back in 2016 and before that was during that win in 2013, so Newcastle have banished yet another curse this season.

Newcastle became the first team to come away from Villa Park with three points this season, inflicting their first home defeat since February 2023.

A brace for Fabian Schar - Who had that on their bingo card?

Fabian Schar was the man to thank for Newcastle, scoring two goals in around three minutes with Jacob Murphy knocking the ball off Alex Moreno to bundle it home for the third on 52 minutes.

Andrew Boyers via Reuters

Newcastle dominated the game from start to finish with Villa having very, very brief spells where they looked dangerous managing to score from one such spell with Ollie Watkins grabbing a goal after Unai Emery made a trio of substitutions which gave the home side a brief burst of life.

In truth, though, it was all fairly easy for Newcastle who should have had more goals to show for their efforts but for some superb stops from Emi Martinez combined with poor finishing from our lads, Sean Longstaff in particular missing a brilliant chance to make it four.

It wasn't all good news

It wasn't all good news, however, as Newcastle lost Alexander Isak to injury just before half time. The good news is that he walked off the pitch, so whatever it is doesn't look too bad, but you never know these days.

Thankfully Callum Wilson should be back for the weekend so the revolving door on the treatment room continues to spin.

For now, though, let's just enjoy what was a very unlikely win. With so much going against us we were so nervous about this game, but the lads ended up putting in one of the most accomplished performances of the season.