Anthony Gordon has backed Newcastle to secure a second-successive season of European football as they prepare for a tough end to a challenging Premier League season.
The Magpies will head into Wednesday night's trip to Manchester United in their penultimate fixture clinging on to sixth place and knowing they might need to get positive results at both Old Trafford and Brentford next Sunday to ensure they stay there.
Gordon told NUFC TV: "They're both massive games. Europe is still in our hands. We've got to perform and go and get two results, which I'm very confident we can.
"We're playing well, we're in good form, we've just got to go and deliver."
Newcastle's cause could have been slightly less taxing had they managed to emerge from their final home fixture with victory over Brighton.
In the event, they had to settle for a 1-1 draw after Sean Longstaff had cancelled out Joel Veltman's opener with a goal that meant the home side had scored in every game at St James' Park in a top-flight season for the first time in 65 years.
Longstaff's strike arrived in first-half stoppage time, but Newcastle, for whom star striker Alexander Isak was out of sorts after going down with illness on Friday, were unable to find a winner after the break.
Gordon said: "I felt like we created the chances, we got into the right areas, just the last little bit, the last cross, the last pass and that was down to all of us, really.
"I felt like we all made too many mistakes around those areas, which is fine.
"You're going to have those days. Unfortunately, ours was today."
Eddie Howe's men have rallied after a testing winter – they have lost only one of their last eight league games and won five of them – and will take positives from a season during which they have played Champions League football for the first time in 20 years, but have also had to cope with a stubbornly-long injury list.
Asked if he would have taken their current position back at the turn of the year, Howe said: "In that position, we definitely would have done because we weren't showing signs of consistency and that's the thing that has probably eluded us the most this year.
"There's been some really good stuff in there, but just not for long enough periods really to gain the full momentum that we had the year before.
"In those difficult moments in January, this looked a long way away. It's healthy to look back sometimes and just give that a bit of perspective."
For Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi, there was satisfaction in another strong performance after last weekend's victory over Aston Villa, but frustration at the injuries to the likes of Julio Enciso and Evan Ferguson which have robbed them of so much football this season.
De Zerbi said: "If you remember how Evan Ferguson and Enciso finished last season, they were both crucial to reach the Europa League and this season more or less, they have never played and for us, it's been tough."
