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It was the tale of two goalkeeping
errors and one that swung Spurs way, because the error happened to
fall to a master goal-scorer in picking up all three points to take
Tottenham up to seventh in the league.
It was a sliced clearance early on by
Steve Harper, the stand-in Newcastle keeper, that set the tone for his
performance and this was a pre-cursor for what happened in the 41st
minute. Harper took a back-pass from Babayaro and he hit it low
... low enough for Simon Davies, ten yards away, to stick his leg out
to block the ball which fell in front of Defoe ahead of him and his
shot beat the dive of Harper that was in vain. It had been a
goal Tottenham's play deserved, but perhaps not the way they had
thought that it would come. It
was in marked contrast to the Tottenham goalkeeper's mistake in the
second half. Having collected a long ball, Paul Robinson tapped
the ball out of the Park Lane area for Ledley King to take away, but
the Spurs captain had turned his back and run off, leaving the ball in
an inviting no-man's land, which James Milner filled. His chip
to get the ball over Robbo had to be big, as his former Leeds
colleague closed him down, but it was wayward and luckily for
Tottenham weak ... just about making it off for a goal-kick, about 15
yards wide of the goal, when a straight shot would have brought about
an equaliser. Spurs has begun the
match brightly and a couple of efforts on target tested Harper - one
from Brown from the edge of the box and a Gardner header from a
corner. Andy Reid showed today that although his final ball is
not always as precise as we all might wish, he has the ability to
provide chances for the front men. A low ball into the six yard
box was just too close to the keeper rather than Defoe and at the
other end of the match, he slipped a fine pass into the path of
Davies, but he was just unable to gather the ball despite Harper
fumbling it as he went through. By that time the Irishman had
switched to the right and was fully involved in the way Tottenham were
going forward. He got one of the biggest cheers of the day when
he chopped Stephen Carr's legs from under him and didn't even get
spoken to by the ref !! The
officials were perplexing all the supporters, with decisions both ways
which looked just plain wrong. Michael Brown was booked for his
second foul, while Alan Shearer was allowed to get away with elbowing
Edman in the head right in front of the linesman. Probably
because Erik did not make a big thing of it, the veteran striker
escaped without a word from the referee. Not so lucky was Ameobi
in the second half, when he got King in the face with a flying elbow
... a yellow, but then he has never captained England !! Reid
had two shooting chances, but only took the second, opting to float
the first into the box, when he had a clear sight on goal. The
latter effort flew wide. Brown hit another speculative effort
goalwards after neatly chipping the ball over Babayaro, but he was way
off target too. But with their first serious break, Newcastle
should have taken the lead. A floated cross from Jenas saw
Ameobi rise highest at the far post, where he had matched up with
Kelly, to head down and then the ball rose up and onto the roof of the
netting, rather than nestling inside it. It was a let off for
Spurs and although it was the 27th minute, Newcastle were looking as
though they thought they might sneak something from this match. Then
in the 41st minute the goal came. Unusual, but then Jermain is
the man you would want such an opportunity to fall to and he stuck it
away with the outside of his foot. Second
half, Shearer failed to appear and Milner stepped into the
limelight. He made little difference, as his early control and
running appeared aimless. Tottenham would have had the goal of
the century had Kelly been able to keep Davies' cross down, as his
volley was fiercely hit, but too high following the Welshman's good
work in tying Carr in knots. With
Brown having taken a kick and with his booking ruling him out of the
next two games (for racking up ten yellows), Sean Davis returned to
action at the Lane and made an immediate impact. His passing is
intuitive and he gets stuck into tackles in midfield. So does
Simon Davies and one (for which he got a boot in the groin) brought
the ball into Fredi's path, but he dragged his shot rather than
hitting it true. Davis hit a laid back ball from Kanoute over
the bar and then Davies took O'Brien's poor clearance and tried to set
himself up. Unfortunately, the ball did not come down
enough and although he tried to pick a point in the top corner of the
goal, his execution took the ball over the bar. A
long clearance saw Defoe on Carr and the former Spurs man was reduced
to pulling his arm back to stop him from getting away, but that is
what Defoe did and put a pass just behind Fredi, who could not hit it
on target. The introduction on
N'Zogbia opened Spurs up a little, as he is a player with pace and one
who likes to run with the ball ... something Laurent Robert failed to
do today. His work stretched Stephen Kelly, but he stuck to his
task and had a really good game, but the block by King as Ambrose
lined up a shot that could have left us two points short of what we
deserved, allied with some fine marshalling of the defence made the
captain the man who did most in the match to preserve our lead. It
was not an enthralling match and there were too many stoppages to keep
the flow going, but Tottenham dug in and prevented Newcastle the space
to get back into the game. The win takes us to seventh and that
might be enough for Europe next season. A few more wins and that
"might" will be unnecessary.
MEHSTG TOP MAN : - LEDLEY KING
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