Eddie Howe full of praise for Newcastle United defender Fabian Schar

The Switzerland international was not only part of a defence which kept a first Premier League clean sheet since December 16, he also had a hand in all three goals in a 3-0 victory over Wolves at St James’ Park.

It was Schar who made the interception and pass which sparked the flowing counter-attack from which Alexander Isak opened the scoring, and he who set in motion the move from which Anthony Gordon made it 2-0 before setting substitute Tino Livramento on his way for the third with a cultured delivery.

Asked about the 32-year-old’s contribution, head coach Howe said: “There won’t be many centre-halves like Fabi. He is a total one-off.

“He is a very good defender. When he is absolutely concentrated and really well trained, he’s as good a defender as I’ve seen. He reads the game really well and the amount of interceptions he makes is second to none.

But he would probably say his biggest strength is on the ball. He can see things and execute things that I don’t see many other centre-halves capable of doing, and that’s why he’s so important to us.

“The two passes today were… Maybe the first one is slightly easier than the second one. The second one I don’t think anyone in the stadium maybe saw – maybe Tino did because he’s made the run and he probably knows that Fabi’s capable of playing it, but two moments of absolute class.”

Newcastle had not won on their own pitch since they beat Fulham by the same scoreline in mid-December and had conceded 12 goals in their previous four fixtures on Tyneside, prompting a tactical tweak by Howe and his coaches.

A deeper set-up limited the visitors’ opportunities to exploit space in between defence and midfield and allowed the Magpies to strike on the break, which they did to devastating effect to open the scoring through Isak after 14 minutes and then double it through Gordon 12 minutes before the break.

Keeper Martin Dubravka has to be at his best to prevent Wolves, who arrived without injured trio Hwang Hee-chan, Matheus Cunha and Joao Gomes and then lost Jose Sa and Pedro Neto by half-time, a way back, and a 100th Premier League win of Howe’s managerial career was secured in stoppage time by Livramento’s fine solo effort.

Howe said: “When I started out in management, if someone had said, ‘You’ll go on to win 100 games as a Premier League manager’, then starting in League Two, I wouldn’t have seen that coming. It’s nice.”

Wolves boss Gary O’Neil, whose injury problems prompted him to include 15-year-old Wes Okoduwa among his substitutes, was happy with much of what he saw, but having confirmed Hwang and Cunha are both likely to be missing for around six weeks, urged his players to carry on fighting.

O’Neil said: “We we can accept how hard this is, ‘We’ve done great, now this is nice, everyone can just enjoy it and we can see how the kids get on’, or we can set the bar higher and we can keep pushing.

“We can’t accept that it’s a tough spell and we’re just going to suffer now, we have to find a way to keep pushing.”

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