'Have you seen the stats?' - Watch as spiky Eddie Howe hits back at Newcastle United accusation

Eddie Howe has hit back at suggestions of a Burnley “onslaught” during Newcastle United’s 3-1 victory at Turf Moor on Tuesday night.

Newcastle raced into a 2-0 lead through goals from Joelinton and Yoane Wissa inside the opening seven minutes before Josh Laurent pulled one back for the home side in the 23rd minute.

The Magpies had opportunities regain their two-goal advantage after Wissa missed a free header at the back post and Harvey Barnes was denied by Martin Dubravka one-on-one before the Clarets pushed hard for an equaliser.

Fabian Schar cleared Marcus Edwards’ shot off the line, while Loum Tchaouna missed two key chances, bringing a save from Nick Pope and then heading over unmarked from Edwards’ cross. Edwards too had a shot saved by Pope’s legs and Laurent hit the crossbar with a looping header.

Despite Burnley’s pressure, Newcastle managed to hold out before Bruno Guimaraes sealed the three points in stoppage time after taking advantage of a mix-up between defender Hjalmar Ekdal and former United goalkeeper Martin Dubravka.

Eddie Howe hits back at Burnley ‘onslaught’ claim

When it was suggested his team survived an “onslaught” to achieve only their second Premier League win of the campaign, a visibly irritated Howe hit back and said: “An onslaught? Against us? Have you seen the stats of the game? You must have been watching a different game then. There was no onslaught.

“Yes we had moments, of course we had moments the other way. I would never describe it as that and I always try to be.. if it was an onslaught, I'd give you my opinion and say ‘yeah I thought it was’.”

The term “onslaught” was used in a question asking about a lack of ‘Plan B’, which is criticism that has been aimed at Howe by sections of the fanbase.

Howe continued: “But Plan B, it's always a difficult one because if you have too many Plan Bs that means your Plan A is flawed and your players are then thinking of what's next rather than trying to deliver the Plan A to the best of their ability.

“We have loads of different ways of playing but within the structure and the principles of what we believe in, so I've seen countless managers ask the same questions on Plan Bs and as I say you have to be careful.

“We have a very strong plan for every situation we just need to deliver it better, that's sort of where I am and the focus is towards the players and trying to improve our performances all the time.”

Eddie Howe admits lack of control v Burnley

While Howe didn’t take too kindly to the word “onslaught”, he did admit his side lacked control in parts of the game at Turf Moor.

Howe said: “Yeah, I don't think we've had the control that we would have liked in some games and sometimes we've self-inflicted some problems on ourselves,

“Going back to Burnley, there was a period of say 10-15 minutes where we were turning the ball over a little bit too much and that gave them confidence and belief to come back into the game when it looked like we were going to take full control, and that's frustrating from our perspective having got a two goal lead after 10 minutes you expected us or I expected us to go on and really consolidate in that moment.

“I think that there's areas there to look at and to focus on and we have our themes and areas that we're focusing on and trying to implement at the moment that will make us stronger and better.

“But I've watched loads of games of Burnley's this year and they've been very competitive at home, they've been in almost every game so while we didn't win as strongly as I maybe wanted us to we did win and it was a good performance.”