EDDIE Howe has the hailed the "amazing" restraint of Bruno Guimaraes after the Newcastle United midfielder passed the yellow card cut-off, meaning he's no longer at risk of being hit with a two-match ban.

Bruno has been on nine yellows for the season since getting cautioned in the home defeat to Manchester City back in January, which at the time was the sixth successive game in which he'd been booked.

If a player reaches 10 yellow cards before the 32-game cut-off, they have to serve a two-match ban, which would have been disastrous for the Magpies at a time when Howe is already down to the bare bones because of an injury crisis.

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The Brazilian promised to Howe in a training ground meeting that he'd avoid his 10th caution - but such is the style with which the midfielder plays, Newcastle's head coach admits he didn't believe him.

But Bruno has been true to his word and passed the cut-off in the 4-0 hammering of Tottenham on Saturday - though there was a heart in the mouth moment at full-time when the 26-year-old clashed with Giovani Lo Celso after the pair had exchanged words when the Newcastle man had been substituted late on.

"It's a big relief for him and us," said Howe.

"We had a meeting a long time ago and he promised me he wouldn't get booked. I didn't believe a word of it, we had so many games to go and his style, I didn't think he'd be able to control that in the moments he needed to.

"It’s an amazing thing he's done for the team because we knew if we lost him we'd be even more depleted. As you saw today, he's so important for us."

Howe added: "The ironic thing was I thought he was going to get booked after the game which I couldn’t have believed. We had to calm everything down."