Newcastle may not be the most exotic of January destinations but Leicester City seem to find it extraordinarily restorative. Not for the first time, Brendan Rodgers’s players departed Tyneside exuding the refreshed, optimistic sheen more usually associated with teams newly returned from midwinter breaks in the sun. On a bitingly cold afternoon, big on windchill factor, not even Andy Carroll’s first goal in a Newcastle shirt since rejoining his boyhood club 18 months ago could strip the gloss from a victory which lifts Leicester to third in the table, one point behind Liverpool and Manchester United. “It was a really, really good win for us,” said Rodgers. “Newcastle are well organised and can defend well and we didn’t create too many opportunities but we still looked dangerous.” Goals from the excellent James Maddison and Youri Tielemans ensured the visitors have won their past five league games here. Given Steve Bruce’s atrocious managerial record against Leicester, it will be of little consolation to him that Rodgers’s class of 2020-21 are arguably at their most dangerous on the road; they have won seven of their nine away fixtures. If that represents a recurring theme, the first half swiftly established another, namely Newcastle’s self‑destructive penchant for gifting the ball to their guests. No sooner had Bruce’s players gained possession than they surrendered it, with Wilfred Ndidi, in particular, delighting in intercepting embryonic home manoeuvres and second-guessing the opposing central midfield pairing of the Longstaff brothers, Sean and Matty. Ndidi’s defensive midfield strength created an ideal platform for Maddison to strut his tone-raising creative stuff. An early example arrived as one of Maddison’s typical eye-of-the-needle passes enabled Jamie Vardy to steal behind Bruce’s backline and, with his first touch, expertly round Karl Darlow before directing the ball into the empty net from an acute angle. A linesman’s raised flag confirmed Vardy had been narrowly offside, but that cameo emphasised the scale of the threat facing Newcastle on a day when they paid the price for repeated failure to close down Maddison and his gloriously fancy footwork. Admittedly Bruce’s defence frequently did a decent job in starving Vardy of possession with Federico Fernández and Ciaran Clark making some important interventions as a tactical stalemate temporarily took hold. Yet Maddison is an expert at picking tactical locks and he deconstructed the home side’s damage-limitation strategy as Leicester counterattacked with alacrity in the 55th minute. When Harvey Barnes carried the ball forward at speed, Bruce’s midfield were caught flat-footed and Barnes’s lay-off found Vardy, who revelled in nutmegging Fernández as he pulled left before picking out Maddison with a beautifully weighted pass. All that remained was for the midfielder to send the ball arcing high into the roof of the net, his clinical shot reducing Bruce’s blueprint to tatters. Once again, Vardy had issued a reminder that he not only scores but creates vital goals while Wesley Fofana’s intelligent decoy charge down the left had wrong-footed the home defence. Bruce’s badly deceived right wing-back, DeAndre Yedlin, will probably feel the need to watch the replays through his fingers. Newcastle’s pain was further exacerbated as another perfectly calibrated delivery – this one from Marc Albrighton – picked out Tielemans’ run and prefaced the Belgian lashing the ball, first time, into the corner. Jonjo Shelvey, recently arrived as a substitute, should have picked up Tielemans but lost him and received a stern ticking-off from Fernández. Carroll has always been more about actions than words and freshly liberated from the bench he reignited the contest courtesy of a similarly fabulous volley. Bruce’s very own Angel of the North reacted instantly as Matt Ritchie’s free‑kick was headed into his path, and he could celebrate his first goal in black and white stripes since his departure for Liverpool 10 years ago. “Andy Carroll’s goal turned the game into a war,” Rodgers said. “But we dug in and stood up to Newcastle’s physicality.” More of the same might be required from Carroll if Newcastle are to avoid being dragged into a relegation struggle. “I can’t fault our endeavour and effort,” said Bruce, who is still without his Covid-19-afflicted principal creator, Allan Saint-Maximin. “But if you give the ball away against Leicester you get punished … and we gave the ball away too often, too cheaply.”