Ashley Westwood took the corner for Chris Wood to head home his seventh Premier League goal this season and end a run of three straight defeats for Burnley.

Questionable refereeing?

The main focus of the game was the questionable standards of the man in black as both managers felt that the referee fumbled some important decisions.

Steve Bruce was unhappy when Tim Robinson awarded a corner instead of a foul on Newcastle United centre-half Federico Fernandez and Burnley scored from this corner straight after.

Quoted by Sky Sports, Bruce said: "The referee has awarded them a corner after initially giving a goal-kick when the ball wasn't out. He's then listened to somebody (his assistant official) who was probably 80 yards away. Looking at it again, it's a clear and blatant foul (before that).

Sean Dyche felt that the ref should've been handed a fixture with the division's bigger sides to gain more experience in handling games with more physicality like Burnley and Newcastle.

He told BBC Sport: "A few of us have fed back to the powers that be that it seems that teams like us do get these first-time referees and then you go, 'Well, why don't you put them in the big games?' because if they've got to learn, they've got to learn - because these are big games for us"

Burnley's losing run ends

Burnley started the game with six defeats in eight, leaving them three points off of the relegation zone. 

In the Premier League, a few wins can make a huge difference and Saturday's win now leaves Burnley a point outside of the top half.

Dyche recalled Ashley Barnes, resuming the famous partnership with Wood and this proved crucial to the final result.

62% of Burnley's goals in 2019 have come from the forward pair, and it bore fruit again after they had struggled to get much joy from a resolute Newcastle backline.

They had one chance in the first-half which was through Dwight McNeil but Wood was more of a threat after the interval and that showed when he converted just 13 minutes after the restart.

Wood has now scored 10 headed goals in the Premier League since the start of last season.

Injuries may have cost Newcastle?

Newcastle entered the game with two successive victories and they thought that there was hope that they would be a top-half side at the end of the afternoon.

An injury list was piling up on Bruce and this made it far more difficult to overcome a solid Burnley defence. 

Lumping the ball to Andy Carroll was an obvious tactic that the Geordies went with but it wasn’t working.

The injuries in their attack were proving costly as they failed to notch a single shot on target for a worrying third time this season.

Burnley were able to comfortably hold out on their narrow lead and stop the lacklustre efforts from Newcastle.