It was the sort of match that prompted more questions than answers. How has Joe Willock not yet received a senior England call-up? Where on earth would Tottenham be without Harry Kane? Will Cristian Stellini ever risk playing a back four again? And, perhaps most importantly, Newcastle surely cannot blow Champions League qualification now?
At the end of an astonishing drama with two goals apiece from Jacob Murphy and Alexander Isak, Eddie Howe’s outstanding side rose to third in the Premier League, six points and two places ahead of a Spurs team facing a sizeable psychological repair job.
When the dust settled one thing seemed certain; Antonio Conte’s withering assessment of his former Spurs players was not wrong. For all Newcastle’s attacking brilliance, the visitors surrendered way too easily. Body language can rarely have been more laissez-faire than Tottenham’s.
They started with a back four for the first time since January 2022 but some experiments prove wiser than others and Stellini’s decision to break with Conte’s old back‑three fixation soon looked unwise.
Newcastle were ahead after 61 seconds.
When Spurs forfeited midfield possession, Joelinton sauntered into the box as Cristian Romero, his supposed minder, watched admiringly.
When the Brazilian – formidably impressive throughout and surely close to an international call-up – eventually shot, Hugo Lloris could only parry into the path of Murphy, who finished from close range.
Joelinton swiftly scored a goal of his own. This time Fabian Schär’s superbly lofted, long through ball confounded the visiting defence – and Romero in particular – leaving the Brazilian to round Lloris before steering the ball into the empty net.
By the ninth minute Howe’s side had scored a third, with Murphy leading the celebrations once more. Schär was again the creator, the Switzerland centre-half dispossessing Son Heung-min before picking out Murphy. After taking a couple of touches the scorer sent a sensational 30-yard shot swerving beyond Lloris.
Even Murphy looked a little surprised at how well things were going, but Newcastle’s afternoon had really only just begun. The time had come for Willock to take time off from pressing Spurs into submission and remind everyone of his burgeoning talent. Courtesy of a sublime through pass delivered with the outside of a foot from deep, the former Arsenal midfielder teed up Isak to steal behind Tottenham’s bisected backline and sweep a shot into the bottom corner.
For their next trick a minute later, Howe’s players passed and moved around their guests from a short free‑kick until the ball reached Sean Longstaff. His deft layoff enabled Isak to direct Newcastle’s angled fifth home in imperious fashion. 21 minutes had passed and Stellini, prudently, switched to a back five.
Howe had demanded a “positive response” following his side’s 3-0 defeat at Aston Villa last Saturday but even he could have hardly envisaged it proving this emphatic. Or Kane’s face looking quite as thunderous.
With Pape Sarr withdrawn, the substitute Davinson Sánchez now constituted the right-sided component of Tottenham’s new-look central defensive trinity and as heavy rain cascaded down on Gallowgate, they improved a little.
Not that Conte’s increasingly soaked interim successor looked any happier as he stood, apparently transfixed, on the edge of his technical area. The screech of the UK government’s 3pm emergency alarm being triggered across countless mobile phones was still to sound but Stellini’s expression offered a whole new definition of “appalled” and scores of Spurs supporters had already heeded internal warning systems of their own and departed.
Those partaking in that exodus missed seeing Kane advance down the left, dodge Schär, and, having cut inside, direct a 49th-minute left-foot shot beneath the diving Nick Pope.
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That “consolation” reinforced the impression that, without Kane and his eye for a counterattacking opening, Tottenham would surely have been in an awful lot more bother this season than they already are.
In reverting to a more familiar back five Stellini’s defence were, admittedly, no longer quite so badly fazed by the stream of Newcastle crosses, most notably from Kieran Trippier, a former Spurs defender, which had so unhinged them during the first period.
Nonetheless, with Willock, Joelinton and co continuing to steamroll their way past Eric Dier and his fellow defenders, Spurs remained far from stable. Accordingly they conceded a sixth goal when, 65 seconds after entering the pitch as substitutes, Miguel Almirón and Callum Wilson combined for the latter to sidefoot home the fallout from Romero’s blocking of Almirón’s shot. That goal was past Fraser Forster, a former Newcastle academy graduate who had replaced the injured Lloris at the start of the second half.
It was Wilson’s first touch and, as Sting looked down approvingly from the main stand, he and his teammates must have felt they really were Walking on the Moon.
