Guimarães seals rout of Brighton as Newcastle close on Champions League

For Newcastle the equation is simple; win one of their remaining two games and Tyneside’s 20-year exile from the Champions League will be over.

The celebrations could well begin on Monday night when Leicester travel here but, should Aston Villa win at Liverpool, they would be triggered as early as Saturday. On this evidence, though, a few of Eddie Howe’s players could be almost too tired to party.

The indefatigable Lewis Dunk and Jason Steele excepted, much the same could be said of Roberto De Zerbi’s evidently fatigued players as they aim to take their club into Europe for the first time.

Whereas Newcastle pushed themselves through the pain barrier, Brighton were way below their best and never looked like sustaining a brief second-half revival.

After a defeat against Arsenal here and a draw at Leeds, Howe said he wanted his players to harness the “power of the crowd” and remind everyone they remain “a force”. Evidently heeding their manager’s words, Newcastle began with the sort of zeal which soon had De Zerbi’s side penned into their own half, gasping for breath.

At this point, Brighton looked a barely detectable shadow of the team that had won 3-0 at Arsenal on Sunday.

As Joe Willock, Joelinton, Alexander Isak, Miguel Almirón and company forced De Zerbi’s starting XI into a series of errors, rarely permitting them to hold on to the ball for more than a matter of seconds, it seemed a repeat of the visitors’ 5-1 home surrender to Everton earlier this month was not exactly a remote possibility.

Only Dunk, fighting a valiant rearguard effort at centre-half, and Jason Steele, once again demonstrating why he has displaced Spain’s Robert Sánchez in goal, were really that heavily involved in mounting a resistance effort.

Shor