Newcastle United welcomed Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, in a highly anticipated game which would potentially be pivotal to the top four race. Both sides were both looking to bounce back from defeats last weekend,
NEW: Pope; Burn, Botman, Schär, Trippier; Willock, Guimaraes, Longstaff; Joelinton, Isak, Murphy
TOT: Lloris; Perisic, Dier, Romero, Porro; Hojbjerg, Skipp, Sarr; Son, Kane, Kulusevski
Newcastle United started on the front foot straight away, finding an early goal through Jacob Murphy after two minutes. Joelinton found space on the edge of the box and launched his effort towards goal, but his shot was parried to the feet of the Englishman who converted well.
Their relentlessness did not let up in the first ten minutes. The Magpies added a second and then a third in a blink of an eye. Joelinton was found with a lovely floated through ball from Fabian Schar, and the Brazilian rounded the keeper to double their lead. The third came from Murphy once again, who scored a brilliant goal – a curling effort fro outside the box was enough to beat Hugo Lloris between the sticks.
It was a horrific start for Tottenham who couldn’t weather the early Newcastle storm, but the North London side managed to hold off for nine minutes before conceding a fourth. This time it was Alexander Isak joining in on the party, as a superb Joe Willock pass found the Swede running in on goal. He made no mistake, placing it calmly past the French ‘keeper.
Isak soon found himself with a brace following some neat passing outside the Spurs penalty area that eventually found Sean Longstaff. He cut it back for the Swedish striker to pass home, and the forward wouldn’t have had an easier chance all day. Tottenham found themselves five down after just 21 minutes, and were well and truly in for a drubbing.
Newcastle controlled the rest of the half, though they took their foot off the gas and created very few real chances. Cristian Stellini would have had a difficult team talk at halftime.
At the start of the second half, Tottenham took Lloris off for Forster, probably to the French keeper’s delight. Spurs started the second half a lot better than they had in the first – and this resulted in Harry Kane wriggling his way through the Magpies’ defence to score past Nick Pope.
Spurs enjoyed a fairly lengthy passage of possession, but they just couldn’t capitalise on it. However Newcastle managed to make it six after a deflected Miguel Almiron shot fell straight to the feet of Callum Wilson, who couldn’t miss.
The second-half was much slower paced than the first, but Newcastle were still the superior team and for most of the game did well to control the possession. Tottenham will be hoping to bounce back from this poor performance in another top four game against Manchester United next time out, while Eddie Howe’s side face a trip to Goodison Park.
