Match Report: Tottenham Hostpur 2-0 Newcastle United

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Tottenham came away deserved winners in today’s outing after outplaying Newcastle for most of the game—even when they were reduced to ten men. The result leaves Newcastle in 12th in the table and a scary four points away from relegation. Tottenham have leaped above Chelsea into 4th and are five points off the top.

In a very physical encounter in which temperatures got very hot, it was Aaron Lennon who was able to take on James Perch and fizz a low shot in the bottom left hand corner. Krul, obviously disappointed and frustrated, took his frustrations out on Perch, but to be fair, I didn’t really see anything more Perch could have possibly done apart from closing Lennon down quicker which would have left Perch open to being outpaced.

After that, Younes Kaboul out muscled a lackluster Jonas Gutierrez, but could not shake off Chiek Tiote who made a superb sliding tackle on the Frenchman. Kaboul then asked Tiote to calm down, Tiote asked likewise, but neither did until heads came together and Kaboul made a forward movement with his head which was judged to be a red card offence.

After the sending off, one was hoping United would press Tottenham and hopefully bag an equalizer. However, Newcastle struggled to get hold of the ball from Spurs who were excellent at retaining possession. Annoyingly, when Newcastle did finally gain possession it was often wasted by players such as Barton, Smith and Routledge with long aerial balls to Carroll, who lacked any sort of support around him and lacked any sort of protection by the referee.

With United pressing, a foul seemed to be committed on Andy Carroll, however, the referee continued his inconsistency and didn’t blow his whistle. Consequently, Spurs were in a position to break with United, having gambled with players forward and Gareth Bale took Steven Taylor inside out and drilled the ball past Krul’s arm into the bottom right hand corner. I’m unsure whether I’m being extra critical but I believe Krul may have been able to do better with Bale’s goal—but I may be being extra cynical.

United then had a succession of corners in which they came increasingly close to gaining a consolation goal, but the closest was Alan Smith’s header thst was cleared off the line which would have been Smith’s first goal in 96 games.

However, it was not to be as Spurs ran out 2-0 winners in quite comfortable fashion for being a man down for 30 minutes.

Krul – 7 – Made a sublime save at the end of the first half to keep the game scoreless. Helpless on the first goal and had the potential to make another great save on the 2nd but a solid performance.

Simpson – 7 – Coped with Bale well, got caught out attacking for Tottenham’s second goal which is understandable, but continues to be a sure thing at the right back spot.

Taylor – 6 – Not hopeless, not great. Very physically similar to Williamson but isn’t such as threat from corner and set pieces as Williamson is. Nevertheless looks like Pardew wasn’t to start a Coloccini partnership.

Coloccini – 7 – Didn’t really look troubled and often played the ball on the ground when we had the extra man. Solid.

Perch – 6 – Was a lot more reliable than people were expecting. Will most likely be blamed for the 1st goal but that may be harsh. Not too bad.

Routledge – 6 – Not as good as he was against City, still lively with nice pace just needs to work on his final ball.

Barton – 6 – Played the captain role well, lead from the front. Antagonised the crowd however often played ambitious balls when simpler option was on.

Tiote – 8 – A great performance in which he similarly to Barton antagonised the crowd won the ball back, tracked back, intercepted. May have discipline problems but did well not to overreact to Kaboul’s head movement.

Smith – 6 – Okay, showed some pace to make a great block against Bale and didn’t give away to many free kicks. Still only capable of a cameo role in my opinion.

Jonas – 5 – Never got into the game, looked like he missed Enrique however only attempted to run with the ball a couple of times and was successful and was also lucky Hutton didn’t attack more and force him to track back more often.

Carroll – 7 – Battled all game, never gave up. Often saw him asking to his team mates to push up and support him more but to no avail. Gave Dawson as good as he got, also looked a big tired come the end of the game which is understandable.

Subs:

Ranger – 6 – Never really had enough time to change the game and didn’t get much to chase down the channels.

Lovenkrands – 6 – Hasn’t quiet started his season yet if you ask me. He’s still missing something and that was shown with his poor touch when given a great ball over the top.

That’s it. Spurs, in the end, are deserved winners.

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