Newcastle United surrendered two points to a painfully average Spurs side on Tuesday evening, drawing 2-2.
Spurs’ only two shots on target saw them smuggle a point out of St James’ Park as familiar patterns returned to United’s play, with the side sitting deep after taking the lead on both occasions and throwing it away in the 95th-minute as Cristian Romero scored a scrappy overhead kick.
Here are two things I liked (and two I didn’t) from last night’s game…
Liked: Bruno’s Captain’s Performance
It seemed strange that our captain was rested for this game with Burnley on the horizon and the Brazilian seemed to want to make that point when he came on at half time. He drove the team forward to overcome the first half hump of not being able to score, and his goal is a delicious finish into the side netting.
Bruno now has 12 goal contributions (eight goals, four assists) in his last 20 home games, miles ahead of any other midfielder we have. That’s an issue for Howe to solve, as we need our other midfielders to contribute.
Eddie Howe also needs to find a way to get Jacob Ramsey into games like these as I felt Tuesday was a game where he could’ve made a difference, which makes it all the stranger that he was stripped and ready come on but was sat back down again only for Schar to come on in his place instead.
Didn’t Like: Throwing away yet more points
United somehow managed to conspire to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory as the lads just seemed unable to shake the mentality of sitting back after taking the lead in a game. What made this all the stranger is that the first goal didn’t arrive until the 71st minute and Spurs had been worse than terrible.
I would ask how the side have conceded two goals to such an abysmal side (who are only in the Champions League by default), who looked scared of getting battered all through the 90 minutes, but that’s now 11 points dropped from winning positions this season for United, and, unfortunately, it is starting to become patterned behaviour.
Didn’t Like: A massive missed opportunity
My Dad always says when we watch football together: “just play the eleven men on the pitch, not the reputation.” Well, Newcastle had a real problem with that last night as we seemed to think Spurs were the Spurs of 2015/16 and not the side that have apparently already decided Thomas Frank is Nuno Espirito Santo in disguise and have a whole host of issues.
Tuesday was a huge, missed opportunity to close the gap on those above us and with many of those sides having eminently winnable games on Wednesday/Thursday we could be eight points off the European places. And with the side struggling to put a winning run together getting three wins on the spin to attempt to close the gap looks a long way off.
Liked: It wasn’t all bad, honest
Despite my concerns with the performance there were positives to take from the game. United dominated the first 35-40 minutes and really should’ve made the territorial advantage count. The side produced 1.96xG, 19 shots, 38 touches in the opposition area, and outran Spurs covering 2km more distance. United have taken seven points from the last nine beating Everton and Man City, and a win on Saturday would make it ten from the last twelve, which is a huge positive after the previous form in the league.
Hopefully, Gordon’s penalty will inspire him onto better form, and Bruno takes his goal with the upmost aplomb, and there are clearly the building blocks of a decent side there but United (and Howe) just seem to really struggle with adapting our style of play to playing a game every three days. And if we are to be the successful side we want to be, challenging for honours regularly, this is something that needs to be overcome: stat.
Anyway, onto Burnley on Saturday for a traditional 15:00 kick off, thank God, because 20:15 is an absolute joke, thanks Sky…
Keep the faith. HWTL
Said it was a banana skin before the match as we just can’t be trusted defensively.
Joseph(Quote)