Newcastle United 3 Swansea City 0

APRIL has been a miserable month for Newcastle United in recent seasons, but on a typically showery April day, the sun finally shone on St James’ Park to give Tyneside a glimmer of hope.

Before Saturday the Magpies had failed to win in April for the last three seasons, losing 11 in a row. Prolonging that run would have left Rafael Benitez’s men staring relegation in the face.

Sunderland’s win over fourth-bottom Norwich City did Newcastle a massive favour earlier in the day and meant the gap to safety hadn’t increased before kick-off at St James’ Park.

Going into games against Manchester City and Liverpool, anything less than a win against Swansea City wouldn’t have been enough, but after five games of trying Benitez – who turned 56 on Saturday – celebrated his birthday with a first win since replacing Steven McClaren.

Goals from Jamal Lascelles, Moussa Sissoko and Andros Townsend secured the vital three points, but it wasn’t until late on that St James’ Park could finally breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Despite taking seven points from their last three games, Swansea’s performance reeked of a side that has guaranteed their Premier League safety, and that was evident from their paltry return of one shot on target.

The scoreline flattered the Magpies slightly and they certainly had to work hard to secure the win, with a few heart in the mouth moments along the way.

That is irrelevant at this stage, though, and winning ugly is something Newcastle will have to do in order to avoid the drop.

The result has certainly given them hope of achieving that and they will now go into tomorrow night’s game in hand against Manchester City with a renewed sense of belief.

“It's like a breath of fresh air,” goalscorer Lascelles said. “Before today people were umming and ahhing about whether we could do it, but we showed we're no pushovers.

“Everybody wanted it and in the changing room before the game there was just something there. That is definitely what we've lacked. Tuesday is a massive game, it doesn't matter that it's Man City. We're 11 men, they're 11 men and we'll go again with the same attitude.

“On paper people would put them down to win, but Leicester are top of the league and nobody thought that would happen. Just because they've got a blue shirt on doesn't mean they have to win. If you have a bit of fight and get after them it doesn't matter.

“Tuesday is a massive, massive stage for us, but I'm really pleased it's at home because the crowd were behind us today and we'll take that positive energy and crack on.

“It's good for them to see what we can do and the fight that we can have. We've given them a bit of belief, they stuck with and, in turn, we've given them a bit of hope as well.”

The breakthrough came in the 41st minute when an Andros Townsend corner was bundled home by Lascelles.

After the break, Swansea did enjoy a spell on top when Ashley Williams, Jefferson Montero and substitute Bafetimbi Gomis all went close, but the Magpies kept a hold of their lead.

During the visitors’ bright spell, Benitez brought on Jonjo Shelvey, Ayoze Perez and Aleksandar Mitrovic and their introductions proved pivotal. Newcastle were able to get a hold of the game in midfield, before Perez and Mitrovic played a part in the all-important second.

Perez and Mitrovic’s persistence to win a corner gave Townsend another opportunity to expose Swansea’s frailties from set pieces and when the latter won the ball, stand-in captain Moussa Sissoko was on hand to smash home with 82 minutes gone.

The tension had finally lifted on Tyneside and that translated onto the pitch. The ball broke for Mitrovic inside the area and he played in Townsend to slip the ball under Fabianski and round off an impressive display.

“I think you guys wrote us off before the game but we knew we had four games at home remaining and exactly what we did today on the pitch, we knew that kind of performance was coming,” Townsend said.

“That was the first time since the manager has got here that we went ahead and we've been able to get compact and frustrate the opposition. It was good to go ahead and show that we can defend in the second-half and end up getting a very good victory.

“We've done a lot of hard work on the training ground and knew that a good game was coming. Now we have to capitalise on our game plan on Tuesday.

“It's still difficult, but if we defend like we did and attack like we did then we'll have every chance. If the fans are as good as they were then we have a chance.

“We have stayed confident and knew it would click even when we were losing games. We believe we can go on a run and get ourselves out of trouble.”