Soccer Football - Premier League - Newcastle United v Sheffield United - St James' Park, Newcastle, Britain - April 27, 2024 Newcastle United's Alexander Isak scores their third goal from the penalty spot Action Images via Reuters/Lee Smith
NEWCASTLE, England (Reuters) -Alexander Isak netted twice while Bruno Guimaraes and Callum Wilson were also on target as Newcastle United thrashed Sheffield United 5-1 at St James’ Park on Saturday to confirm the visitors’ relegation from the Premier League.
Ben Osborn also scored an own goal for seventh-placed Newcastle, who move to 53 points from 34 games this season.
Sheffield remain on 16 points from 35 matches and cannot finish outside the bottom three.
"We have not been good enough. The league has been too powerful for us right the way through the season," Sheffield manager Chris Wilder said.
"There's plenty of games where we have been put to bed early but today we should have been 3-0 up at halftime. I'm scratching my head that it was 1-1.
"Newcastle up their game and get a head of steam. Then our old mistakes start to fall in and goals go from two to three to four to five pretty quickly.
"There's a reason why that happens. It's an incredibly young side and there is a complete lack of leadership out there."
Newcastle beat Sheffield 8-0 at Bramall Lane earlier this season but were second best in the opening 45 minutes.
The visitors started much the brighter and took the lead inside five minutes. Ahmedhodzic headed in Gustavo Hamer’s cross from deep following a fine back-post run.
The visitors continued to press and Cameron Archer saw his goal-bound effort blocked by Dan Burn.
Newcastle were poor in the opening quarter but one piece of incisive play saw them draw level. Jacob Murphy provided the through-ball and Isak showed composure to slip it past visiting goalkeeper Wes Foderingham.
The home side took the lead eight minutes into the second half with a rare Guimaraes header as Anthony Gordon picked out the Brazilian at the back post and the latter stooped to score.
The game was over as a contest just before the hour-mark when Mason Holgate fouled his former Everton team mate Anthony Gordon and Isak extended Newcastle’s lead to 3-1.
It was a one-sided contest after that as Osborn put the ball into his own net during a scramble in the box and Wilson thrashed home a fifth goal when he was given too much time and space by a wilting visiting defence.
"I'm very happy. It was important for us to stay in the race for Europe," Isak told Premier League Productions. "We got off to quite a bad start and needed one goal against us to wake up.
"The reaction was very good. The manager (Eddie Howe) gave us a wake-up call at halftime. Europe is still alive and we have to focus on ourselves and we'll see how it goes."
(Reporting by Nick Said; Editing by Clare Fallon)
