Like initialsake Alan Partridge at the end of his spell on This Time, we imagine Ange Postecoglou must be hopping mad and wants something in the middle.
There are few sides as useful as Newcastle or games as useful as this to expose Spurs’ own self-inflicted failures. Had Tottenham been able to just stay in that lovely zone that was attacking but neither irresponsible nor tentative, you feel this game would have been theirs.
The Spurs manager has struggled to get his side to find that balance between timid and reckless since arriving at the club last summer. Against Newcastle United they were punished for sitting at either end, despite finding a sweet spot in the middle that at one point made them look the more likely winners.
An overall lack of urgency, Guglielmo Vicario’s unconvincing punching, Spurs’ spells of conceding possession needlessly in their own half, Pedro Porro’s pot-shots and Wilson Odobert’s complete lack of instincts for making runs – watching Spurs in that first half felt like watching a talented academy side with a couple of senior players in the mix in the shape of James Maddison and Son Heung-min. They’d do great at the Olympics, you feel.
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That naivety came to bear as Newcastle United – dominant in the early stages but more subdued after a stoppage for an injured linesman to be replaced – took the lead off a quickly-taken throw-in to which Spurs just didn’t respond. Lloyd Kelly was allowed up the left to cross for Harvey Barnes to side-foot home superbly in his first league start of the season after an injury-hit first campaign at St James’ Park.
Tottenham had played that first half like a team carefully trying to follow instructions not to let last season’s caution-to-the-wind approach become too costly. If that was the case, then Postecoglou clearly remembered that Newcastle can’t really defend and just told his players ‘f*** it, you do you’ at the break; Spurs were much better for it.
With everyone playing 20 yards further forward, Newcastle were placed firmly under the Tottenham thumb until the pressure was too much to withstand.
Just moments after Odobert finally made a good run to the back post only to blaze over the bar from all of about two yards, Dan Burn showed him how it was done, burying the ball firmly into the net after Nick Pope’s poor save allowed Brennan Johnson to slide in and poke the ball towards goal. Shame Burn plays for Newcastle and the net he stuck it into was his own, really.
A Spurs winner felt likely, with Newcastle looking for chances on the counter but finding them limited. An emboldened Spurs encroached yet further forward…and that final step proved to be fatal, as Joelinton’s superb ball in behind a Spurs back line stationed on the halfway line released Jacob Murphy to race clear of Destiny Udogie before squaring for Alexander Isak to tap into an unguarded net.
Postecoglou must feel like Polonius at this point, warning his young charges to be one thing but not too much of that thing, and telling them to be true to their own selves while fighting that impulse within himself, knowing it is not a pragmatic way to get consistent Premier League results. He has ten months’ worth of evidence to back that up.
Despite being technically bested for much of the middle hour of the game, Newcastle won because they were simply more competent and more clinical. How Postecoglou must wish he had more of that in his own side.