Eddie Howe urges Newcastle United to maintain momentum at Manchester City

Eddie Howe has urged his Newcastle United players to maintain their current momentum when they face treble winners Manchester City on Saturday night.

Newcastle finished last season fourth in the Premier League – their highest finish since ending the 2002/23 season third under Bobby Robson – and began the new campaign with a superb 5-1 thrashing of Aston Villa.

But now the Magpies face the ultimate test when they take on Pep Guardiola's men, who defeated Sevilla on penalties in Wednesday's Uefa Super Cup.

Newcastle's record at City is abysmal – they have never won a Premier League game at the Etihad Stadium and last took three points no their when they won 1-0 in 2000 at Maine Road thanks to an Alan Shearer goal.

But optimism is sky high on Tyneside after their resurgence under Howe and the fact City played a draining match against Sevilla in the heat of Athens just three days ago could also count in their favour.

“We want our players to go there with all the positive emotions that our season last year and our first game of this season should bring. We have to be ourselves. We can't change,” said Howe during Friday's pre-game press conference.

“We want to become a top team consistently in the Premier League and to do that we have to have a clear identity and try to implement that on other teams.

“They went into a tough game [in the Super Cup] and were desperate to win, you could see their reactions afterwards. This is a team that will not be complacent. They will be ready for us so we expect a really good game.”

Last Saturday's win over Villa at Saturday was a hugely impressive one with Howe starting with Alexander Isak in the striker's role ahead of last season's top scorer Callum Wilson.

Isak repaid his manager's faith