Newcastle 4 Brighton 1: Toon take huge step towards top four as late Wilson show sees off plucky Seagulls
BEAT rotten Leicester on Monday and it’s Madrid, Paris, Munich and Naples for the Toon Army.
Three more points and the Geordies on tour can ditch the budget package deals for five star luxury at Europe’s biggest and best stadiums in the Champions League.
Deniz Undav headed into his own net before hometown hero Dan Burn made it 2-0 with a towering header against his former club on the stroke of half time.
The nerves were starting to jangle on Tyneside having lost to Arsenal and drawn at Leeds.
And the tension was palpable when Undav put one in the right goal at the start of the second half moments after Miguel Almiron butchered a sitter.
But Eddie Howe’s power-packed Mags hung on by hook or crook before Callum Wilson and Bruno Guimaraes sealed a seismic win at the death.
Liverpool are coming up full-throttle in the rear-view mirror yet get the job done against the lowly Foxes and the Champions League anthem will be ringing out at St James’ Park in four months’ time.
They’ve spent the vast majority of the season inside the top four so to lose out so late would be a sickener.
Brighton – still sixth and a point ahead of Tottenham – were woeful early on but came out fighting after the break and had the Magpies panicking.
However they lacked a killer instinct in the final third, with Newcastle moving onto 69 points – the same number they finished with under Sir Bobby Robson in 2002-03 when they last qualified for the top competition.
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The hosts were unchanged after Leeds but Roberto De Zerbi surprisingly changed four having battered Arsenal, with Alexis Mac Allister, Julio Enciso and Evan Ferguson benched while Levi Colwill was out of the squad.
Up against Newcastle’s ferocious press, the Seagulls couldn’t get out.
Wingers Alexander Isak and Miguel Almiron were bang on it and causing carnage.
They forgot their shooting boots but Brighton’s passing around the back was causing problem after problem and they were lucky to go unpunished until the opener came 22 minutes in.
Lewis Dunk did brilliantly to block Joelinton’s effort.
But from the following corner Trippier bagged his seventh assist of the campaign, with his in-swinger beautifully nodded into his own net by Undav at the near post.
Incredibly it was their sixth own goal of the season, taking them two behind the record eight Leicester set in 2003-04.
Brighton were way off the pace, a shadow of the side who smashed the Gunners and a replica of the one demolished by Everton.
And they were two down in first-half injury time when that man Trippier set up another.
His free-kick from the right was spot on again, bent to the back post straight onto the head of giant ex-Seagull Burn to head back his first Prem goal for his boyhood club past Jason Steele.
The defender absolutely loved it, celebrating wildly in the faces of his former team-mates.
It should have been three five minutes after the break when Almiron was found free at the back, only for the Paraguayan to lack conviction and volley straight at Steele.
And it was game on when Undav made amends for earlier.
Billy Gilmour’s pass through the heart of Newcastle’s defence was sublime but there were gaping holes, allowing the German to bury and make it four goals in five.
There was more bad news for the Mags when midfielder Joe Willock hobbled off in agony after pulling up clutching his hamstring.
Steele then got down to his right to deny Isak’s header and keep Brighton in it.
And the anxiety around St James’ grew as the clock ticked on and Toon failed to kill the game off.
Yet all that worry evaporated when Wilson and Bruno delivered a devastating late double.
Newcastle’s No 9 latched onto Almiron’s through ball and calmly slotted home his 18th of the season before the striker turned provider and teed up the Brazilian midfielder to take Howe’s side to the brink of the Champions League.
