Eddie Howe has turned things around at Newcastle, but says Norwich City can pose a significant threat to the Magpies at Carrow Road.

Newcastle are targeting a fourth successive Premier League win for the first time in four years, with safety virtually assured.

They sit 19 points ahead of bottom-placed City - who themselves are looking for back-to-back home wins.

“If you look back at their last two fixtures, going to Old Trafford and playing very well with an attacking style, they were really unfortunate not to get anything from that game and then they were excellent against Burnley,” said Howe.

“It seemed like that was an intense game and the crowd are always behind their team. We have to prepared for that and have to be mentally right after last week.”

When the sides drew 1-1 at St James’s Park in November, Teemu Pukki’s excellent goal cancelled out Callum Wilson’s penalty for Newcastle, who played most of the game with 10 men following Ciaran Clark’s red card.

“At the time, it (the reverse fixture) felt like a missed opportunity for us to try and get our first win but the players did respond brilliantly,” added Howe. “We took the lead and I was disappointed we couldn’t hold the lead because the players gave everything.

“Maybe that was the first sign of things to come on a consistent basis in terms of effort, commitment and putting their bodies on the line for the team.” Howe has hinted he could make changes for their third match in the space of seven days.

“We may freshen things up,” he said. “We’ll have a look at it on an individual basis but we want players that are 100pc fit and ready to give their best again physically.

“Norwich haven’t play midweek and we’ve had a big physical cost, especially the manner of the two games and the effort it took, with the long spells of possession in the second half of both games (against Leicester City and Crystal Palace), so we need to be ready for a tough game.”

“Ryan (Fraser) has had his second scan and there’s relatively good news in that there’s no massive problem for him but he’s in race against time to get fit before the end of the season.”

For Howe, the battle to keep Newcastle in the top flight has been fuelled by the lingering pain of the one he lost with Bournemouth.

Two seasons ago, he was unable to prevent the club he had led from League Two into the top flight slipping back into the Football League, prompting the end of his eight-year second spell in charge on the south coast.

However, he used him time out of the game before he was appointed head coach at St James’ Park in November last year to reflect on what had gone wrong, and that has proved key to the Magpies’ revival.

Asked how much that experience had helped, Howe said: “A massive amount, I would say. All my years of management before then were, I’m not going to say successful, but pretty much successful.

“That was the first big failure for me and it was very, very painful. But sometimes through those experiences, you learn so much and I certainly did a lot of self-reflection in my time out.”

Newcastle had just five points when Howe was appointed, but now sit on 40 after Wednesday night’s 1-0 win over Palace.