Bright skies emerge over St James’s Park as Newcastle beat Huddersfield to edge towards Premier League survival

Newcastle 1-0 Huddersfield: Ayoze Perez's second half goal moved Rafa Benitez’s side to 12th and barring the most calamitous of collapses, Newcastle will be staying up

Ayoze Perez celebrates after scoring the winner for Newcastle (Reuters)

It was the 80th minute, the sky had turned black and an afternoon of peppering Huddersfield Town’s goal had started to feel in vein, when Newcastle United launched another attack.

Ayoze Perez swept the ball wide to the substitute Christian Atsu, he drove down the right hand side, crossed deep and Jonas Lossl came from his goal to parry. The ball fell to Kenedy, the on-loan Chelsea winger, and in keeping with how he has played since moving north, he kept his head, tucked a neat little sideways pass to Perez, who had continued his run, and from six yards the Spaniard struck a goal that drew a euphorias celebration.

Relief and delight swept around St James’ Park. In that instant Newcastle United created a seven point gap between themselves and the relegation zone, with a superior goal difference to any other realistic rival for the drop. They also went 12th. The sky actually did brighten.

Newcastle, barring some form of footballing catastrophe, will have Premier League football next season.

Quite how they had not established a significant lead by half-time was the biggest mystery. Huddersfield were pummelled in the Tyneside rain.

By the time Martin Atkinson brought a breathless opening 45 minutes to an end, Newcastle had peppered Jonas Lossl’s goal with 13 attempts, with only two coming in reply. Chief amongst those was Dwight Gayle, who was a problem that the visitors’ rearguard could not deal with.

There were half chances, lobs, deflections and volleys and when the whistle went he rightly got a consoling arm off Paco Morena. He deserved that. On the quarter hour mark the outstanding Jonjo Shelvey shot from 20 yards and Gayle’s instinctive attempt to redirect the shot saw it go narrowly wide.

Rafa Benitez barks out his orders to the Newcastle players (Reuters)

Two minutes later Matt Ritchie stole ahead of him and from around 10 yards his angled shot was blocked by Lossl’s left leg. In the 26th minute Gayle cut in onto his left and Lossl again saved.

There was little in reply. Paul Dummett cleared a low cross from Elias Kachunga and two minutes from half-time, a quick free-kick from Shelvey found Gayle behind Chris Schindler and Mathias Jorgensen. He took a touch and then attempted to lob Lossl with the outside of his right foot and the effort again went narrowly wide.

David Wagner's side sit just three points above the relegation zone (Reuters)

The pressure was fairly relentless. Ritchie found the overlapping DeAndre Yedlin with a fine ball, the cross reached Gayle, but it would not sit and he took his volley under pressure and it flew over the crossbar.

Still it was all Newcastle, and again from a Yedlin right-wing cross the ball fizzed at the onrushing Gayle and his attempted flick with his heel went wide.

It was the hour mark before Huddersfield fashioned a realistic opportunity, Laurent Depoitre turning and shooting wide from 20 yards and five minutes later an Aaron Mooy corner reached Jorgensen and his header was blocked as it flew towards Martin Dubravka’s goal by his own team-mate, Colin Quaner.

Perez's goal took Newcastle to 35 points and 12th in the league (PA)

There would be a debut for Islam Slimani, two months after he moved to St James’ Park on loan from Leicester, coming on as 75th-minute substitute for Gayle. Atsu’s cross was aimed for him, that led to Perez’s goal.

There would be a need for Dubravka to stand strong in the 92nd minute. He did. Newcastle had their victory.