The Magpies snapped a four-game Premier League losing streak as goals from Will Osula and Dan Burn gave them a two-goal advantage at half-time.

Jack Hinshelwood found the top corner to pull one back for Brighton, but Harvey Barnes wrapped up three points deep into added time.

Victory was played out in front of Newcastle’s owners, with chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan and co-owner Jamie Reuben in attendance at St James’ Park following their review of the season at Matfen Hall on Thursday.

Asked if he would get an eight-hour sleep following a challenging period, Howe said: “It’s funny because I didn’t get eight hours last night.

“I’ll level with you, there was a moment where I woke up and I thought: ‘Oh dear, what day is it?’.

“Which is really unusual for me, I’m a very good sleeper. There was obviously an anxiety for me last night where I’m going into today’s game just wanting the team to perform.

“I’m sure I’ll sleep well tonight, certainly with the emotions of that game I’ve got no doubt that I will.

“Your outlook on things changes, as much as you try to stay very level, things just look a bit brighter with winning so hopefully we can enjoy next week.

“From an emotional level that was a massive win for us, we knew it, everyone knew it internally.

“I think we’ve been building towards that for a few weeks. I think the training has been really strong, really committed, very competitive and I’m a big believer that you always end up getting your rewards for that if your work continues to be strong.

“Credit to the players for sticking together, staying united, behind the scenes they’ve been excellent.

“At times we rode a little bit of luck today, but I think we more than deserved that in the recent weeks.”

Fabian Hurzeler admitted that key moments proved costly as Brighton’s five-game unbeaten league run ended.

Defeat is a setback in their bid for European football as they slip to seventh in the table, but with three games remaining Hurzeler urged his team to bounce back.

“You can feel it from when we had the first chance that they always created this danger,” the Brighton boss said. “You could also feel it on the pitch and also in the stadium.

“It was unlucky for us in the end, we missed the chances in the end, we weren’t able to manage these key moments well.

“Therefore we have to analyse it, we definitely can defend better as a team, we definitely can manage the key moments better.

“When we just focus on performance and how we tried to play our football then I think the players did everything what they can do.

“They showed great effort always to believe they can win this game. We will take the positives away and we will analyse it, then we bounce back.”