Newcastle score 5 to tighten grip on UCL place

Jacob Murphy scored one goal and set up another as rampant Newcastle United thumped Crystal Palace 5-0 at St James' Park on Wednesday to go third in the Premier League table with a sixth consecutive win in all competitions.

Newcastle have 59 points from 32 games and are five points clear of sixth-placed Chelsea in the race for Champions League qualification next season with the top five teams earning a place. Palace have 43 points and are 12th.

Harvey Barnes, Fabian Schar and Alexander Isak also scored for Newcastle, as the visitors' night was compounded by an own goal from defender Marc Guehi and a missed penalty by Eberechi Eze when they trailed 1-0.

Newcastle were again without manager Eddie Howe in the dugout as he continues to recover from pneumonia, but the performance would have been just the tonic as they scored some excellent goals and were ruthless in punishing Palace errors. 

"We have spoken about building on the recent results and today was a good example of that," Barnes told Premier League Productions.

"He [Murphy] is playing unbelievable. He is such a character in the changing room and in great form.

"We are focussing on our job and the task at hand and making sure the manager (Howe) is proud of the results. We are so well drilled and know our roles going into each game."

It was the first time Palace have failed to score in 13 Premier League fixtures, though remarkably their expected goals tally of 2.02 was better than that of Newcastle (1.39).

Newcastle played with tenacity, pace and efficiency in the final third as they opened the scoring on 14 minutes through Murphy's thunderous shot from a tight angle that beat goalkeeper Dean Henderson high at his near post.

The visitors were awarded a penalty by the Video Assistant Review when home goalkeeper Nick Pope came to punch a free-kick that had been floated into the box and clattered into defender Chris Richards.

But Eze's spot-kick was desperately poor and lacked power or accuracy, giving Pope his first penalty save for five years.

"I can't remember the last time Eze missed a penalty," Guehi told Sky Sports. "It happens. When he scores, no one says anything. We just have to move on."

Inside two minutes of that miss, Newcastle doubled their advantage as a game that should have been 1-1 was suddenly 2-0 to the home side.

Barnes looked to square the ball inside the six-yard box and his cross deflected off Guehi and wrong-footed Henderson with 38 minutes gone.

Newcastle added two more goals in first half added time as Barnes got his goal from a lightning counter-attack after being set up by Sandro Tonali, before Schar stooped to glance a header from Murphy's cross into the net.

Isak added the icing to a sumptuous performance on 58 minutes when he collected the ball from Joelinton's challenge on Palace defender Maxence Lacroix and curled his shot low into the net from 25 yards.