Burnley were the latest club to struggle late in the game as the Magpies had them on the ropes.
Toon defender Steven Taylor says "you could see Burnley tiring", as Alan Pardew's fitness campaign is getting its rewards.
Steven Taylor (talking to the Chronicle): “It was very important not to lose that game.
“Having suffered a narrow defeat at West Ham, we couldn’t afford to lose another game coming off the back of such a good run, especially with having Chelsea next.
“That wouldn’t have looked good, and I’m sure some people would have started asking questions again.
"But the lads put in a second-half performance that was much more like what we’ve been doing in the last few matches.
“We’ve been like that ever since the Leicester City game.
"We’ve really been at it, and the lads were spot on in the second half. I thought we were the only team that were going to win the game.
“I don’t think we could have got any worse after the first half. The main thing for us was just to get at them.
“We paid them too much respect in the first half and played into their hands.
"We were matching their game plan, and they’re better at that than us.
"But once we got the ball down and started to play, we had the players to hurt them.
“You saw that in the second half. We started playing between the lines and you could see them tiring. It looked like they had gone, and we just tried to get at them. To be fair, they put a shift in.
“They ran every ball in the first half, so we knew that the longer the game went on, they would tire and we would find spaces."