Newcastle thrash Leicester 4-0, as Arsenal, Liverpool drop points

Newcastle responded to last weekend’s 3-0 defeat, finding the right form to thrash Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Leicester City 4-0 at St James’ Park on Saturday.

Jacob Murphy scored twice as Newcastle rediscovered their killer touch to condemn Leicester to a 4-0 Premier League defeat.

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.

Newcastle recorded their 12 league games win for the Magpies to ease pressure on head coach Eddie Howe, while Ruud van Nistelrooy suffered his first defeat since taking charge of Leicester.

The 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 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 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.

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.