Bruno Guimaraes lay face down on the final whistle after giving everything he had in the tank to help Newcastle United to a vital 2-1 win over Leicester City.
Moments before his 95th minute strike he had screamed in frustration after chasing a loose ball but just falling short of retrieving it. And before that Bruno had shared a laugh with Brendan Rodgers as he cheekily grabbed a swig from one of Leicester's water bottles after working up a serious thirst.
READ MORE - Newcastle player ratings after Leicester win
The wild celebrations at the end will get the headlines, of course, but one hidden stat after the game emerged for the Newcastle midfield star. Incredibly he was the first central midfielder in the top five European Leagues to earn as many chances in front of goal in a single game (4).
And given his quality and coolness in front of goal, he was on hand to take two of them on an unbelievable day for the Magpies. Given Bruno's levels of fatigue, Eddie Howe was asked if he thought about taking him off towards the end.
But he replied: "I could see he was fatigued – at half-time he had a bit of treatment on his back, hence why he went down first half, so there was a slight concern there. But I just felt he was very, very important for us. The moments we did have playing through Leicester invariably involved him, so I wanted to try to keep him on the pitch, and also I was reluctant to change the midfield too much."
Bruno capped his day off by throwing his shirt into the crowd and the recipient, a boy watching the game with his father on Easter Sunday, could not have been happier. As the players left the field the boy and his father embraced each other beneath the tunnel.
It would have been easy for Bruno to go shirt swapping with some of Leicester's stellar cast. Instead, he put the supporters first again - the guy is a class act.
The fighting spirit of Eddie Howe's team is shining through
Newcastle were a team renowned for throwing away the lead not so long ago, now they are a team renowned for fighting back. And that's no exaggeration either.
Since the start of February, United have won more points when falling behind than any other team. Those 10 points are probably going to keep Newcastle ahead of the pack at the bottom.
The victory was also the fifth in a row at St James' Park for Newcastle and they are unbeaten in 2022 on home turf. The positive stats keep on coming.
Some bookies stop taking odds on Newcastle to go down
Mathematically, Newcastle can still be caught by Burnley who can still get up to 46 points from their last seven matches. But the reality is will they? And United are also in a good position to pick up more wins with six games left.
After being odds on at one stage to go down this season, SBK bookmakers were offering odds of 299/1 for Newcastle to be relegated. Others, like Sky Bet and Coral, offered 100/1 but Newcastle have one hand on their Premier League place. Midweek could be interesting if Newcastle beat Crystal Palace and Southampton win at Burnley 24 hours later.
That would leave Newcastle on 40 points and heading to Norwich next Saturday knowing an away win combined with a Burnley loss at home to Wolves means they can no longer be overtaken by the Clarets.
What we do know is once the mathematics start to get silly it is all over bar the shouting. Let's face it, Newcastle are safe but can they finish the season in style?
