Newcastle bounced back from their defeat against Manchester City to grab a scruffy win against Aston Villa on Saturday, much to the relief of their boss John Carver.

“There’s huge relief in the dressing room,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty with us off the back of a drubbing and them near the bottom of the league but we have a good spirit. 

“The biggest thing that pleased me is that we kept a clean sheet. 

“We have a long list of people not available but we dug in and fought every inch to get a result.”

Despite the cushion between the Magpies and the relegation zone, this had the feel of a must-win game for Newcastle who face a tough run against Manchester United, Everton, Arsenal, Sunderland, Liverpool and Spurs in their next six.

But they had to fight for it as Villa played some of the best football they have all season and created more chances than they have in recent games. Yet they still couldn’t find the back of the net.

Christian Benteke drew a great save from Tim Krul with an overhead kick on 28 minutes and it was the start of a period of dominance for the visitors. 

Benteke again and then Scott Sinclair both went close. 

But they were on top for less than 10 minutes as Newcastle scored a goal very much against the run of play.

Jores Okores failed to deal with Daryl Janmaat’s raking cross from the right and it fell into the path of Papis Cisse who was able to shoot easily past Brad Guzan.

Villa came back in the second half and had the ball in the back of the net after 71 minutes but Benteke had strayed offside.

“I’m far happier in defeat today than I was last week because I saw improvement,” said Villa boss Tim Sherwood, who is still searching for his first win. 

“We’ve conceded one shot at goal in the first half and went in a goal down that was a bitter disappointment. We need a shot of confidence. I’d take a poor performance and a win.”