'If I'm honest': Eddie Howe lays down law for Newcastle United players despite 3-0 victory on Monday night

It was perhaps the easiest three points Newcastle United picked up all season at the King Power on Monday night as Leicester City looked defeated after just 15 seconds.

Right from the kick-off Leicester City managed to get the ball forward to Jamie Vardy who hit a shot that Nick Pope tipped out of play - the shot was going wide anyway but Pope made sure.

That took just 12 seconds, and aside from a Patson Daka fluke that hit both posts and bounced to safety (which would have been chalked off for offside anyway), it was as close as Leicester came to mounting anything like a serious threat.

Eddie Howe's men coasted to victory, scoring three goals in the first 34 minutes and then switching off and letting the clock run out.

Eddie Howe wasn't impressed with how Newcastle took their foot off the gas on Monday night

Even before the midway point in the second half, Eddie Howe was making changes to rest some of his top players ahead of a tough game against Manchester United on Sunday.

However, despite Howe also going along with the coasting attitude by changing up his side, he still wasn't too happy with how his side let the game play out, telling the BBC that they will need to do better.

"I don't think we were at our very best today, if I'm honest. I thought we did enough.

"We'd have liked to have performed better in the second half, we became a bit bitty, and we made some changes. We will certainly need an upturn in performance if we're going to win the next three which are against high-quality teams."

Newcastle's next three games are huge

The next three games in question are, of course, Manchester United on Sunday, the game-in-hand, Crystal Palace on Wednesday both of which will be played at St James' Park, and then Aston Villa away on the following Saturday.

After closing the gap on Chelsea, Newcastle must not let it slip away now and as hard as it may be, a win in those three games could be massive.

Chelsea and Manchester City, and even Nottingham Forest now, are dropping points, so if we can keep going there's even a possibility of snatching third. It has been three wins in a row already for Newcastle, what's another eight?