Ruud van Nistelrooy wants Leicester City to take heed from their humbling 4-0 defeat at Newcastle United.

Three second-half goals - from Bruno Guimaraes, Alexander Isak and Jacob Murphy's second of the game - offered Leicester's new manager a brutal reminder of how ruthless the Premier League can be.

Van Nistelrooy had picked up four points from his opening two games at the helm, but his team were second-best from the start at St James' Park, where Leicester managed just one shot on target.

Despite the setback of a first loss, Van Nistelrooy is well aware of how quickly an opportunity to react can come about, as struggling Wolves head to the King Power Stadium next week.

But he knows the Foxes need to eradicate basic errors ahead of the crunch festive period.

"It was hard. It was 1-0 at half-time. We were a bit lucky not to be down by more. It's costly when you concede in such standard set-piece situations. Then it was going to be hard to turn it around from there," he said, as reported by BBC Sport.

"We know how intense Newcastle are and the way they play. A lot of the chances they created were from our ball losses, and they got moving quickly on the counter-attack. We kept going and trying, but we have to take this one on the chin and move on."

Van Nistelrooy's opposite number, Eddie Howe, labelled his side's performance as a clear improvement after the Magpies failed to win any of their previous four league games prior to Saturday's contest.

"It was a good performance. The first goal was important. It took a well-worked set play to set the ball rolling, and the second goal was important too, so we were able to express ourselves a little more," he said.

"We’re disappointed we haven’t been able to show that more this season. Today was one of our better performances."

Howe's cautious optimism was balanced against a rallying message from his captain Guimaraes - who finally ended his wait for a first goal of the season - and the Brazilian called on his team-mates to maintain their momentum ahead of a midweek EFL Cup quarter-final against Brentford.

"I think we stepped up in this game. It's a massive win. The team played well, especially in the second half," he added.

"I'm very happy to score again. I've been trying for a long, long time, but I wasn't lucky. We need to keep going as we have a massive game on Wednesday.

"We need to step up in all of our games, not just against the big six. Today was big proof this team can do big things together."