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After the chill defeat at West Brom,
the thaw arrived with an easy win over Newcastle, who rarely looked
like scoring and rarely looked a Premiership outfit. Their
ragged passing, lack of understanding as a team and lack of
inspiration from the manager made Tottenham's task a lot more
straightforward than we all might have thought. A
nervy first half hour could have let Newcastle seize the initiative,
but their inability to pressure the Tottenham centre-half pairing, who
had a difficult re-introduction at the Hawthorns, saw Dawson and
Gardner grow in confidence as the game went on. For once, Alan
Shearer showed what he is ... a veteran player, who was unable to
overcome two good youngsters, by fair means or foul. In fact,
the referee did manage to spot all the tricks of the trade that
Shearer employs, with little going his way. However, I will take
issue with Mr. Webb about his inconsistency. At Boro a couple of
weeks back, he booked Dawson and Davids for their first tackles, while
Scott Parker was allowed three goes at Edgar and a serious foul on
Jenas without the sniff of a card. This lack of uniform
application of the laws means that some players might have to suffer a
suspension, while others escape. Not
that it mattered in the long run, as the barcodes had started making
their long trek North long before the final whistle. Taunted by
the shouts of "We want Souness out", but appreciative in
applauding the Tottenham supporters chants of "One Bobby
Robson", they had had enough of seeing their team not giving
their all in the black and green (?) striped shirt.
Early on they might have made a
breakthrough when Parker burst past a couple of sluggish Spurs players
into the box, but pulled his shot across the goal in the second
minute. It was sweet to see him and know that Stephen Carr
(somewhere in the ground) had to experience the "big club"
that they joined be humbled by little Tottenham. The ex-England
midfielder was about their best player on the day, but that says
little about the team nor how he might feel about playing there. The
return of Teem Tainio was welcome. His energetic work in
midfield adds a different dimension to the side and his attempt to hit
a volley wide in the third minute and continued to pepper the Toon
goal. Another player who had a fine game was Robbie Keane, who
linked play well, without trying to over-do his dribbling too much and
it was he who first had the ball in the back of the net. Eight
minutes gone and Lee's smart ball through to Robbie in the left of the
area, saw him flick the ball past Given as he raced out, only to be
flagged offside. Graham Souness
said after the game that Peter Ramage was suffering with a calf
problem on one leg and an Achilles problem on the other. Mostly,
he was suffering with being not very good. Even if he had four
legs, he wouldn't have been any cop. His cynical rugby tackle on
Tainio in the eleventh minute deserved a red, not a yellow card, even
though it was not a goalscoring opportunity. It was screaming
"I am not good enough to stop this player by fair means" !!
Spurs were not quiet as fluent as they
have been at stages of this season, but they staged a siege of the
Newcastle goal, with Davids hitting a shot wide and Lee smashing the
ball into Shearer's back as he took a shot from a short corner.
Tainio threatened the youngsters sitting in the top tier of the Park
Lane with a shot that went so high it looked like one of Robbo's
freebies being distributed after the Pompey match !! Lee was
getting forward on the left, but he takes on players and then has to
cut back onto his right foot most of the time to cross. Some of
his crosses fly over the heads of those in the middle, while others
hit the first man, but in the first half, he nearly picked out Mido's
head and then slid one way over the Spurs men in the area.
Tainio also put in a ball across the six yard box that nobody read and
it passed off for a goal-kick when Given was beaten and Bramble was
ball-watching. Solano almost
surprised Spurs with a straight free-kick that missed all the
Newcastle heads in the area and nearly caught out Robinson, who had to
make a swift move to catch it. With forty minutes on the clock,
Spurs should have taken the lead when Keane put in a left wing cross
that found Jermaine Jenas running onto it, but he got his approach
wrong and although he won the header, it went wide from a few yards
out. Not that we had to wait long
for the goal to come. Two minutes before the break, Robinson
launched a long kick forward, Mido flicked it on and as Tainio came in
from the left, he his his shot first time across Given and low into
the net to give Tottenham the lead. It was nearly wiped out, as
Gardner dithered in injury time, Owen took the advantage and raced
into the box, but out came Robinson to block the England striker,
leaving him limping off when the half-time whistle went a few seconds
later. It transpires that he has a fractured fifth metatarsal,
which will keep him out for seven to ten weeks. With
Owen replaced by Luque and Ramage by Babayaro at the break, we
expected an onslaught from the visitors to get back into the game, but
it did not arrive. Jenas did well to block a Luque effort and on
the hour, Parker employed a short back-lift to fire a 25-yarder just
wide of the post with Robbo having to move quickly to even try to
cover it. Apart from that there was little to concern Spurs. Five
minutes after the break Keane slipped a pass inside the defence to
free Jenas in the area and he chose to go on the narrow side instead
of shooting across Given and the ball flicked off Boumsong into the
side-netting. Given was called upon again to come out to to kick
clear from Tainio and the Finn got his head to a cross from Carrick's
free-kick, but it was not powerful enough to trouble the keeper.
Another header that was simple for Given to hold came from what would
have been a sublime goal. Jenas took a towering ball down dead
at his feet and struck a raking pass across the pitch to Keane, who
also performed a neat bit of skill to kill the ball and keep it on
tight to the line. He beat his man, hit a cross which was a bit
too high for Mido, whose header was taken comfortably, while Jenas was
racing in behind him and probably was in a better position to take the
header. With 67 minutes gone,
Robbie Keane put in a cross and it fell to Edgar Davids moving into
the area. Boumsong did well to block his shot and as the ball
dropped in the area, Jenas put in a tackle that took the ball back out
to Keano. This time his cross picked out Mido at the far post
and he hit a left footed volley that ripped into the net. Well,
alright ... it rippled the net, after he hit it down into the ground
and it bounced over Given and in !! With
a two goal lead, Spurs started to play a bit more expansively.
Davids took two passes on the edge of the area and hit one shot a yard
wide and another that missed by six inches. Ameobi had
Newcastle's best chance of the game, but didn't even manage to hit the
target. N'Zogbia hit a shot that Robinson could only beat out
and as the lanky striker closed in, he hit his shot into the ground,
but instead of hitting the net like Mido's, it hit the Park Lane
crowd. It was an amazing miss. Tottenham's
mickey-taking reached extraordinary lengths. Stalteri nut-megged
Faye, Lee was turning Elliott inside out and the whole team almost
stopped their forward movement when Boumsong went down in the area
(and seemed to have a decent shout for a penalty) and Spurs waited for
him to get back into defence, before they started attacking again !! Jenas
picked out Mido in the box with a cross and he finished with a fine
volley, but was a mile offside, but he later hit the post from a very
acute angle, with a deflection earning Tottenham a corner.
Babayaro made a fine defender's clearance when Davids' cross was aimed
for Jenas, but the Newcastle defender put the ball out for a corner. Lots
of good performances joined together with a good team performance made
this a good end to the year and we all hope to see more of the same in
2006.
MEHSTG TOP MAN :
- TEEMU TAINIO
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