Eddie Howe felt his Newcastle United players showed they still believe in him with their performance in a 2-1 win at Tottenham on Tuesday.

Newcastle had fallen into the Premier League's bottom half after three consecutive defeats, the last of which, at home to Brentford on Saturday, saw the team booed off.

Howe responded to that loss and the supporters' reaction by acknowledging he was "obviously not doing my job well enough", adding ahead of the Spurs game he would only remain in his role as long as he felt he was the right man for Newcastle.

The scene was very different by full-time at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, however, as captain Bruno Guimaraes and Kieran Trippier pushed Howe forward to celebrate in front of the away end following a deserved victory.

There were reminders of some of Newcastle's struggles this season as they squandered chances either side of Malick Thiaw's opener and then let their lead slip to Archie Gray's 64th-minute equaliser.

But there was no doubting the side's character as Jacob Ramsey swiftly hit his first goal for the club, which would prove the winner.

After the post-match celebrations, Howe was asked if he had done "a bit of soul-searching" in recent days and responded with a smile: "I think 'bit' is an understatement, to be honest.

"Whenever you're in the moment that we were in, you have to take stock of everything. As I said at the press conference after Brentford, that wasn't an act, that was me being real and very genuine in terms of how I felt.

"I'll say it again: I've got to believe that I'm the right person to be in the job, with all the sacrifices that it entails, and I've got to feel the players are playing for me.

"Today they showed that they are, but that has to be consistent moving forward."

Indeed, Howe believes Newcastle were able to use the criticism "in a positive way", responding quickly to the Brentford setback amid a brutal schedule.

"It's brought us closer together and reinforced relationships," Howe said. "It's made us all look inward, made us all look at what we're doing and how we can do it better.

"This is a really tough job that we're doing. We're at the very highest level, where you're constantly getting asked new questions, and we're playing a schedule where we're playing every three days.

"Sometimes that can feel like you can't breathe, you can't reset, and you're being asked to play again and again.

"That's why we rotated the squad today to just freshen a couple of players up, so they can find their top form. We need to try to have the ability to do that more often, if we can get a few players back from injury.

"We're desperate to be successful. It all adds to the mix."

The only dampener on a fine night for Newcastle was the sight of Guimaraes hobbling off in the closing stages, with Howe waiting to learn if he had suffered a hamstring injury.