Alan Shearer & Eddie Howe in agreement over £95m Newcastle United pair

The Magpies’ 4-0 win at Ipswich Town on Saturday was their third consecutive victory in a week where they moved up to 7th in the Premier League table and progressed into the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup.

Alexander Isak bagged his first hat-trick in a Newcastle shirt while Jacob Murphy claimed his third goal in as many games.

Analysing the win at Portman Road on Match of the Day, Shearer said: “In recent games, what he has done is he’s put Tonali in the six role and Bruno Guimaraes a little bit further forward and it’s given him a little more freedom to get into forward positions, and it has certainly helped both of the players and more importantly the team.

“I think he feels more important in that role Tonali and I think he’s a better player. A lot of the time when he gets the ball within one or two touches he likes and wants to play the ball forward. He has to do his work defensively as well.

“The understanding of both of them in their roles was absolutely superb. The little tweaks have helped players but most importantly helped the team. They were very, very good. Isak and Murphy had great games as well.”

Speaking about Tonali and Guimaraes, Howe said: “I think the balance of the team looks really strong currently, Sandro was again magnificent in the heart of the team and gave us real stability and control.

“Bruno has always been tactically very good and very good at the long distance runs that he has to do. He has to that in his other positions as well. He's very good at breaking up play and that was of course key today for the [third] goal.

“The big challenge for any player to press is to go that way but considering it his third game in a week, I thought all of our attacking players did that really well and got back behind the ball and made it difficult for Ipswich to penetrate us so credit to Bruno today, another good performance from him.”