Happy New Year! Newcastle United’s first game of 2025 takes us all the way down to London, to face Tottenham Hotspur at their shiny stadium.
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has made the rounds on Twitter/X recently. A Spurs fan criticised a Korean tourist for taking a cheerful selfie after the home side conceded a late goal against Wolves, throwing away two points. This tweet caused quite a stir, with some agreeing with the original poster that tourism is running football, whilst others defended the Korean fan, reasoning that he is within his right to enjoy the matchday experience despite the result.
Tottenham’s stadium has often come up in conversation when our fanbase discuss the possibility of leaving St. James’ Park. On one hand, it is a marvellous, state-of-the-art stadium with the capacity for football games, NFL games and concerts from superstars. However, some fans believe that it is a ‘soulless bowl’ and believe that tweet about the Korean fan is the sign of things to come at Newcastle United.
My view on this is that I, as a Geordie who has supported Newcastle her entire life, don’t want to be pushed out in favour of those with the means to price me out. I made a joke to my friend from Wolverhampton, who is coming to St. James’ next summer to see Sam Fender: “Geordies are the friendliest people in the world. Until you get into St. James’ Park before they do.”
However, I believe that football tourism discourse has steadily crept into xenophobic territory, particularly when it comes to supporters from Asia and the Middle East – and that is certainly something I do not condone. Standing up against being priced out is admirable, but taking a photo of a supporter enjoying themselves isn’t.
Let’s look ahead to this weekend on the pitch. Tottenham have had a rocky December: there have been the lows of losing 6–3 to Liverpool and 4–3 to Chelsea, but also the highs of smashing Southampton 5–0 and winning 4–3 against Man United to progress to the semi final of the Carabao Cup.
What’s also very high for Tottenham is their goal tally. They have scored 41 goals this season so far, the second most in the league behind Liverpool. That is quite a feat for a team sitting all the way down in 11th place in the table. This is because they’ve lost nine games, as opposed to 7 wins and 3 draws, and conceded 28 goals all season. It doesn’t take a tactical genius to figure out where on the pitch Tottenham’s biggest weakness lies: the back line.
Their manager, Ange Postecoglou, tends to adopt a man-to-man pressing system, often leaving his players exposed to balls played in from behind. Normally, a full-strength back line would be able to handle these situations. However, Tottenham are currently dealing with another injury crisis, leaving them without left-back Destiny Udogie, centre-back Cristian Romero and flying wonder centre-back Micky Van De Ven. Forward Richarlison and goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario are also out due to injuries.
On top of these absences, Spurs are dealing with another suspension for central midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur. In their previous match against Wolves, he picked up his fifth yellow card of a season, suspending him for Saturday’s game. This has happened just after he returned from a seven-match ban for using a racist slur against teammate Heung Min-Son. The bottom line is that it’s not all sunshine and daisies in that multimillion pound stadium.
It's a good thing that we know a thing or two about beating one of the big six teams in crisis at their home ground. After many miserable years, and only one league win there, Newcastle United ripped Manchester United to pieces in their backyard on Monday night. Most of the coverage was about how terrible the home team were, but I think we deserved a lot of credit, especially in the first half an hour, for how easily we brushed them aside. Both of the goals were simply brilliant. No fancy finishes or strokes of luck, but precise and accurate passing from the players, full of confidence that the ball would go into the back of the net. It was delightful to watch.
On Saturday, as we face another ‘tricky’ opponent, I think Howe will probably keep the same starting line-up, with the exception of Tino Livramento in for Kieran Trippier. The only criticism I had – if you can call it that from the last game – was that I believe the substitutes should’ve been brought on earlier, as lots of the starting players looked exhausted. Therefore, I hope some changes can be made earlier on Saturday, but obviously that all depends on how the game pans out.
It'll be a high-scoring one; that’s the Angeball way. Son is too good for that club.