West Ham surprise Newcastle with 2-0 win on the road
Newcastle's winning run in the English Premier League came to an abrupt end when goals from Tomas Soucek and Aaron Wan-Bissaka gave West Ham a surprise 2-0 win at St James' Park.
The Hammers rose into 14th place and the pressure on coach Julen Lopetegui was eased.
The London club have been inconsistent all season and the win on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) was just their fourth in 12 league games.
West Ham deserved the win, but the three points came courtesy of slack defending by the home side.
Emerson whipped in an outswinging corner after 10 minutes and, with Newcastle defenders rooted to the spot, Soucek stole in to nod home the opener.
Eight minutes into the second half, captain Jarrod Bowen found Wan-Bissaka in the penalty box and he was left unchallenged and had time to fire an angled drive past Nick Pope.
"The second goal ... if you settle on a lead it can come back to haunt you," Bowen said.
Newcastle brought on Harvey Barnes, then Callum Wilson returned from a long-term back injury to make his first appearance of the season but to no avail.
"I said we needed a performance, and we did that," Bowen said.
"Newcastle always score at home, so to keep them to a clean sheet and score twice ... it's a tough place to come to. We did that perfectly."
The defeat ended a three-game winning streak for Newcastle and left the Saudi Arabia-owned club in ninth place, four points outside the top four.