Newcastle United head coach Eddie Howe was complimentary of how Nottingham Forest defended and kept the match in the balance before Fabian Schär's second-half stunner broke the deadlock at St James' Park.
The Reds were on the verge of reaching the hour-mark with the scores still level before the Newcastle defender picked out the top corner from distance and beat Dean Henderson on his competitive Forest debut. Callum Wilson then sealed the result 12 minutes from time with a fine finish to render the efforts of Steve Cooper 's side without a reward.
Howe himself admitted that during his half-time team talk he emphasised his players about keeping their composure and staying disciplined in their approach in the face of Forest's rear-guard effort. The Newcastle boss was, though, ultimately positive about their performance in it's entirety.
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“It was a brilliant performance from us, I thought, today," Howe said. "From start to finish, I was very very pleased.
“But at half-time, that game was still very much in the balance. Despite our dominance, we hadn’t scored.
"Nottingham Forest had defended well and we hadn’t been clinical enough in certain moments, so the main aspect of my team talk was to make sure we didn’t lose our discipline and search for that goal in a disjointed way. Thankfully we didn’t.
On Schär's goal, Howe added: “We sort of needed a goal like that to break the deadlock because we had created a number of chances and hadn’t taken them, and it took a long-range goal to get us going.”
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