Fulham 0-1 Newcastle United: That was way harder than it ever needed to be

Newcastle United come away from Craven Cottage with all three points despite VAR's best efforts in a game of two very contrasting halves.

Eddie Howe was absolutely bouncing with rage during the first half as Newcastle might as well have just stayed on the team bus for what use they were.

Fulham completely dominated the play and it took until past the half-hour mark before Newcastle even had a shot in anger with Anthony Gordon dragging a long-range effort just wide.

Gordon again fired just wide a few minutes later, but these chances only came after a severe rollocking on the touchline while Martin Dubravka was receiving treatment.

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More injury woes for Newcastle as Joe Willock came off in the first half

In typical Newcastle United fashion, we lost Joe Willock to injury in the first half while Martin Dubravka survived two injury scares and Fabian Schar managed to stay on after his afternoon looked to be over.

It was the Toonminator who opened the scoring too, lashing in a shot from just outside the six-yard box from a Newcastle corner, however, VAR and an on-field review ruled that Dan Burn had committed a foul in the buildup.

Quite frankly, it was a baffling decision as Calvin Bassey had mistimed his jump and was never going to get to the ball anyway before Burn made contact. The thinking is that Bassey's resulting position following Burn's push impeded his ability to defend Fabian Schar's follow up which ultimately went in. Seemed like a harsh call, but ultimately it didn't matter.

Brunooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Just moments later, Newcastle went in front and no amount of VAR reviews was going to chalk this one off as Bruno Guimaraes drilled the ball into the net from the edge of the area with 81 minutes on the clock.

Even nine added minutes weren't enough for Fulham to overcome their crippling shyness in front of goal. For all their first-half possession, and all their corners, Fulham never actually looked like scoring.

That's now six times Martin Dubravka has faced Fulham and he's yet to concede against them. An impressive stat.

Newcastle remain in eighth in the Premier League table as West Ham managed a win, but we're keeping the pressure on and that's what matters.