Nicolas Jackson reflected on his role in a 1-0 win over Newcastle United with Aston Villa.

‘I nearly broke my leg’

Jackson’s relentless running, linking of the play and creative passing put him in the wars constantly, and it was another game in which he was well involved without finding the back of the net himself.

Having escaped serious injury following a tough tackle from Sven Botman, the forward continued to try to create chaos at St. James’ Park and he was not flustered by the missed chances on the evening.

"I'm good. I know the referee said yellow card but it was so high and hopefully maybe next time a red card, but it was a yellow. I nearly broke my leg but anyway it's part of football.

“The most important thing is we win and we won so I'm OK and he [Johan Manzambi] is OK.

“[Missing chances] is part of football. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes not. He [Manzambi] got the goal and hopefully next time we both score and we score many goals together."

‘I'm very happy to be back with Unai’

The Villans have won back-to-back Premier League away games, backing up their 3-2 triumph over Tottenham, and they thrashed Fenerbahçe 6-0 in the Champions League on Wednesday evening.

The team is in a phase of transition, but Jackson trusts Unai Emery to oversee positive progress.

"It was a difficult game. We know St James' Park is very difficult to play but we got three points and we're very happy to win here.

“[Emery is] an amazing coach you know. I'm very happy to be back with him and hopefully we can do some amazing things as well.

“He's amazing, everyone knows that he is one of the best coaches in the world and we are very happy to be with him. Hopefully we can grow together and he always helps us so we're very happy.

“We are not where we want to be because we lost some points but the most important [thing] is in the past, forget this game as well, focus on the next. Go game by game and we will see where we go."