Howe on 3-0 win, Isak, Tonali tweak and transfers - Watch TNT Sports interview

Following our 3-0 win against Wolves on Wednesday night, Eddie Howe was speaking on Isak’s brilliant form, Tonali’s move to a deeper role and the January transfer window.

It wasn’t the best Newcastle performance we’ve seen this season but it was another victory, another clean sheet and another step closer to returning to Champions a league football.

Howe speaks to TNT after Newcastle 3-0 Wolves

Of course, Isak has been winning all the headlines these past few weeks having  score in eight consecutive Premier League matches, breaking the club record of seven, and rightly so.

The super Swede has been nothing short of phenomenal during this run and he’s showing no signs of slowing down after adding another two to his tally as well as an assist for our third.

But someone who perhaps has gone a little under the radar is Sandro Tonali who has been utilised in a more deeper role where he has been so instrumental into turning our form around.

The sheer running power of the former AC Milan captain has been a huge factor in winning these midfield battles and once again there wasn’t a single blade of grass that he didn’t cover against Wolves.

In Howe’s own words, be described his number eight as ‘magnificent’ on the night and praised his work in transition at both ends in particular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F3OmlvsNOo

On the win, Howe said: “I thought we had to keep going today, Wolves played well. It’s always difficult against a back five when they defend as deep as they did, so we had to be patient today.

“First half they had a couple of moments that were warning signs for us but overall I thought we handled the game really well.”

On Isak, Howe said: “The first goal was key today, we needed it. I think he’ll probably say that he meant it the way things are going for him at the moment. He’s got that freedom and he’s a really good dribbler so in these moments we encourage him to get on the ball as much as he can.

“When you’ve got the technical skills that he has I think it’s absolutely huge for us that we don’t ask him to be too central and static - we need him on the ball as much as he can in the attacking third.

“I think like most strikers he wants to practice his finishing, it’s an art form. He’s there every day after training wanting to do more. The challenge for us is to get that balance because there’s load issues, we have a lot of games.

“He has a really good mentality to his training. All the finishes we’ve worked on continuously, we’ve worked on his heading ability and he’s scored a few headers this year so it’s just the array of goals that he needs.

“He’s enjoying his football, we love having him here, we love working with him. All I would urge him to do is focus on the next game.”

On Tonali, Howe said: “I thought Sandro was magnificent today. We always ask our midfielders to do a different job depending on our opposition, today he had a deeper role off the ball and I thought he did absolutely brilliantly.

“He was putting out a lot of transition issues for us, so I thought his individual performance was very strong, but I thought our midfield again was a key area especially in the first half.”

Isak takes headlines, but Howe deserves huge praise

It had been a bumpy few weeks for Newcastle as we found ourselves in the bottom half of the table and winless in four, but Howe deserves great credit for the way he managed the situation and found a solution to turn things around.

At the time there were questions over if he was the man to take us to that next level or if his tactics were too one dimensional, but he’s gone on to prove all his doubters wrong as our latest win takes us into the top four.

The 46-year-old has now matched the record of nine wins in a row along with Kevin Keegan and Rafa Benitez and will be looking  to go that one step further with another big game against Bournemouth on Saturday.

The boss remained as reserved as ever on transfers, however, and confirmed that the club are not actively pursuing any deals at the moment despite the need for some reinforcements.

“Not currently. We’re not actively looking for any player in any position. My main job is to try and keep what we have.”