That’s Newcastle’s third successive league victory at White Hart Lane, and in the end not undeserved, after they transformed as the game went on from scratchy if game mediocrities to defensively sound thrilling counter-attacking force. That’s it from me. It’s been memorable. Bye!
Updated
Rob Elliot is named man of the match and dedicates it to his mother, who was involved in a car crash this week (she’s alright now):
The lads were outstanding today. That’s what we need. It was great character to come back, especially against a team so in form. It was just a brilliant all-round performance. I don’t think there was one man of the match today, everyone was just magnificent. The quality’s there to be seen. We’ve probably got 11 internationals on the pitch. It’s just making sure we get it right and do it properly. I think sometimes we’ve been playing our own game rather than playing as a team. When we play together the results are to be seen.
Updated
Meanwhile at Anfield it’s ended 2-2, with Divock Origi scoring a stoppage-time equaliser for Liverpool against West Brom.
I think it was Gouffran’s ball that was headed on by Mitrovic for the winning goal, which would make it a spectacular triple substitute glory combo for McClaren.
Final score: Tottenham 1-2 Newcastle
90+5 mins: It isn’t, and Spurs kind-of-threaten once more, but when Eriksen’s attempted through-ball is intercepted, the referee blows his whistle and Newcastle’s players go into an improvised celebratory huddle!
90+5 mins: Alderweireld crosses from the right but nobody can get on the end of it, and Newcastle have a goal kick, which presumably will be the last kick of this game.
GOAL! Tottenham 1-2 Newcastle (Perez, 90+3 mins)
Newcastle win it at the death! Mitrovic the creator here, flicking on to Perez, whose shot from an acute angle goes under Lloris!
Updated
90+1 mins: Into stoppage time we go, and there’ll be at least four minutes of it. Newcastle bring Gouffran on for Anita.
90 mins: Incredible chance for Newcastle! Sissoko crosses low from the right, and the ball flies inches from Mitrovic’s boot without the striker making contact!
90 mins: Dele Alli’s 25-yarder deflects limply to Elliot. Spurs do not look the more likely winners at the moment.
88 mins: Newcastle are getting better the longer the game goes on. Commitment and organisation, two words which haven’t often been used to describe them of late, have characterised their second-half display.
86 mins: Another substitution, as Nacer Chadli replaces Lamela.
85 mins: Kane outpaces Coloccini with ludicrous ease. So much so that the officials go on to give Newcastle a goal kick when it looked for all the world like Kane had earned a corner, a victory for sympathy over logic.
83 mins: This is anybody’s game now. Or both of theirs to share. Spurs attacking in search of the win, Newcastle breaking given half a chance. Rose dispossesses Sissoko to end one such break and passes to Son, who shoots wildly over the bar from 30 yards.
82 mins: Mitrovic has apparently scored had only seven shots on target this season, and scored three. Nice conversion rate.
80 mins: Perez does well to control Coloccini’s pass, gets into the area and stabs the ball past Alderweireld, but as it bobbles out of his reach he dives in, and Vertonghen gets there first. It’s a free kick, naturally, and also a yellow card, harshly.
78 mins: Another chance to make a chance! Sissoko roars down the right again, and tries to pick out Mitrovic at the back post. Alderweireld, though, spots the danger and intercepts.
75 mins: Meanwhile at Anfield, West Brom are now 2-1 up, after Olsson legitimately scored from a set piece.
GOAL! Tottenham 1-1 Newcastle (Mitrovic, 74 mins)
And they’ve equalised! From that free kick Coloccini, beyond the far post, heads back across, Anita heads it goalwards, Lloris pushes the ball off the line and through a defender’s legs and Mitrovic lashes home from 30cm out!
Updated
73 mins: Danny Rose handles a cross, gets booked and concedes a free kick.
72 mins: Aleksandar Mitrovic comes on for Cissé. This has not become the procession that many anticipated, and there’s still potential here for the visitors. They could do with creating a decent chance at some point, obviously.
Updated
70 mins: Eriksen takes a shot from an optimistic angle, direct from a free kick. Elliot flops onto the ball.
69 mins: And that’s the end of Carroll’s afternoon, Son Heung-Min replacing him.
68 mins: A booking! Tom Carroll gets his name into the book of the man in black (and blue) for fairly cynically stopping a Newcastle break.
65 mins: Sissoko has the ball on the right again, this time in plenty of space, and with three – three – team-mates busting a gut to offer him options in the middle. He floats in a useless cross and Lloris catches it.
63 mins: A substitution! Siem de Jong comes off, and Ayoze Perez comes on.
62 mins: Cissé has a header on target, from Sissoko’s cross, but though he strains every available neck muscle in an attempt to put some power on the ball, it still floats meekly into Lloris’s arms.
59 mins: This is scrappy stuff, from both teams. Spurs give the ball away a couple of times, get it back again a couple of times, and then Rose’s cross goes nowhere near anyone, except Elliot.
57 mins: Newcastle win their first corner of the game, as Vertonghen deflects De Jong’s low centre behind. Nothing comes of it.
53 mins: Kane’s 30-yarder is pushed wide by Elliot – the kind of shot that leads to both striker and keeper looking good, without a goal ever looking remotely possible – and from the corner Alderweireld heads wide.
Updated
52 mins: That’s a better chance for Newcastle, as Cissé is sent sprinting into the left side of the area, but his shot across goal rolls a foot wide.
51 mins: Janmaat’s cross from the right creates a moment of mild concern in Tottenham’s penalty area, ending with Wijnaldum drying to hit the ball over his shoulder towards goal, but only finding Alderweireld’s arm.
50 mins: Eriksen hits the free kick into the wall.
48 mins: Walker passes to Alli, a couple of yards outside Newcastle’s penalty area, and he smells Anita coming and falls over – there didn’t seem much contact there – to win a free kick. A good shooting chance, this.
46 mins: Quick feet from Lamela, shifting the ball from left to right. He then crosses out of play for a goal kick, though.
Peeeeeeeeeeep!
46 min: We’re back under way, half to starting almost precisely as did half one, with the ball being knocked back to the edge of the centre circle and then hoist towards the right flank. It doesn’t work out for Spurs either.
Why do pundits so often refer to players "gambling" by running in at the near post? Get to the ball and you have a chance! @Simon_Burnton
— Gary Naylor (@garynaylor999) December 13, 2015
This is a fair point. All runs off the ball are I suppose gambles of sorts, bringing as they do no guaranteed reward, but there’s got to be a better way of describing them.
Half time: Tottenham 1-0 Newcastle
45+3 mins: That is half of the time. Tottenham deserve to be ahead, and are indeed ahead, but haven’t been anywhere near their best.
Updated
45+2 mins: Oh no he doesn’t – the goal’s been disallowed for offside. Rightly, it seems, having seen a replay or two.
45+2 mins: Meanwhile at Anfield, another set piece brings another West Brom goal, Jonas Olsson converting this one, and the Baggies lead 2-1.
45+1 mins: Into stoppage time we go, and there’ll be at least two minutes of it.
44 mins: Oooooh! Eriksen’s shot deflects off Coloccini to Rose, whose first-time cross-shot is too close to goal for Kane to slide in and convert, and too far from goal to, well, go in the goal.
42 mins: Alli and Eriksen gang up on Colback, pushing him back into his own area and cutting off all easy outlets before finally nicking the ball away from him. But the referee gives a very charitable free kick for some kind of foul, and Newcastle escape unpunished.
GOAL! Tottenham 1-0 Newcastle (Dier, 39 mins)
And Elliot very nearly saves this one too! It’s a corner from the left, Dier meets it at the near post and heads it across goal. Elliot flings out a hand but succeeds only in pushing the ball over Anita on the line and into the net!
Updated
38 mins: Another super save! Kane flicks on and Lamela rushes past Dummett and pokes goalwards, only for Elliott to push it over the bar! “It’s never going to happen but why oh why can’t teams wear the same club strip home and away?” asks Dave Patten. “As a distant theoretical follower of the Magpies since wor Jackie and Bobby Mitchell, the Robledo Bros, Bob Stokoe etc one of the reasons I’ve lost interest is that the Toon is just not the same in their weird and foreign colours. Is any club going to get back to basics? Well certainly not Newcastle with a sportswear owner only interested in zero hours staff.” I take your point, but just checking: you supported Newcastle for 60 years but now you’re not so keen, at least in part because you don’t like their shirts?
36 mins: Super save! Lamela hits a first-time, left-foot shot across goal and Elliot dives full length to push it wide!
Updated
34 mins: And a cross at the other end, Wijnaldum looping the ball in, and Cissé heading wide, with no great power.
33 mins: A nice cross from Danny Rose on the left, but it’s just beyond Kane, and Elliot claims it.
31 mins: Meanwhile at Anfield it’s now 1-1, after Simon Mignolet tried to catch a corner and, well, didn’t.
30 mins: Colback has been booked, for tripping Walker.
29 mins: The referee just fell over.
28 mins: I’m embedding this tweet purely so that you too can enjoy John Arne Riise’s enormous top hat, as featured in his profile picture.
The skipper is back!! @LFC #henderson
— John Arne Riise (@JARiiseOfficial) December 13, 2015
26 mins: Now Anita clips Alli on the back of the ankles. The last five minutes have featured too many stoppages, and the quality of the football has stuttered as a result.
23 mins: Dummett and Walker go for the same ball, an honest, full-blooded, whole-hearted challenge from both players, with Walker’s left knee taking most of the damage. He’s limping, but continuing.
22 mins: Meanwhile at Anfield, Liverpool take a 1-0 lead over West Brom, Henderson turning in a Lallana knock-down from six yards following a Coutinho cross, with no defender doing anything relevant whatsoever.
21 mins: Coloccini nips in to take the ball away from the advancing Elliot and the advancing-in-the-other-direction Alli, who then trip over each other, with the Spurs man wanting a penalty for his troubles. He doesn’t get one.
Updated
19 mins: Newcastle attack! Well, Dummett lumps a free-kick from the half-way line into the area and Sissoko heads it straight out of play, but still, it’s something.
17 mins: Spurs are all over this, even if Newcastle have had the game’s best chance so far. The visitors have barely been out of their half since.
14 mins: Rose gives the ball away and then sprints at Sissoko and wins it back with an awkward left-foot sliding challenge. It does him more harm than good, though, as he hurts himself in the process, and the physio’s now having a look.
13 mins: Eriksen chips the ball into the box towards Kane, who appears to get pulled back by Coloccini and makes no effort to divert the ball as it flies just past him.
12 mins: Alli fluffs his control again, having been picked out in the area by Alderweireld and with a fine chance just a decent first touch away. Unconvincing start from the young England tyro.
10 mins: Tottenham have their first shot, a 20-yarder from Dier than rumbles wide.
These kits look like the designer's 5 year old smeared painty fingers all over them and those versions were made by mistake @Simon_Burnton
— Gary Naylor (@garynaylor999) December 13, 2015
Are you referring to Newcastle’s pink and grey split sash? I don’t mind it, really. If my five year old (who’s actually six) designed that I’d be pretty chuffed.
Updated
8 mins: Alli runs onto a chipped pass down the left, miscontrols it and then swings an arm at Mbemba as the ball runs out of play. He makes no contact, but it’s weirdly petulant, and a couple of Newcastle players come over to tell him what they think about it.
5 mins: Chance for Newcastle! Brave Newcastle block from Newcastle shot denies Newcastle goal! Cissé passes to De Jong, on the right-hand side of the penalty area, and then bursts into the box just in time for De Jong’s shot to smack him in the head. The effort was very possibly goalbound before Cissé’s brave if puzzling intervention.
4 mins: Sissoko passes to Janmaat, who is offside, falls over, turns and gives his team-mate a full-on rollicking for delaying the pass unnecessarily.
2 mins: An early corner for Spurs, pretty easily cleared at the near post.
Peeeeeeeeep!
1 min: We’re off! Newcastle get the match under way, and immediately hoist a long ball forward, eventually giving Spurs a throw-in.
The players are on their way out of the tunnel. Action totally imminent.
Updated
Mauricio Pochettino talks to Sky:
It is a great opportunity for us to take three points, against a very tough team. Always you need to play first, to be calm. For us it’s very important to be focused on our win today because we expect a very tough game.
Last week Newcastle beat a very good team. They are a strong team, they have very good players. We need to run, we need to play, we need to be focused because I think it’s a really tough game for us.
And Steve McClaren has also spoken to Sky:
Last week proves that if you work hard and you’ve got great attitude you can win any game. It’s absolutely similar today. What we did last week was outrun the opponent and try to stop Liverpool playing the fluent football they’re used to. We want the same again. We want to be front foot, get in there, stop them playing, stay in the game and take as many chances as we possibly can.
We know it’s a big game. The players know. It’s a challenge, it’s an opportunity, to follow up from last week. We put a marker down. We need to put another one down today.
The Liverpool v West Brom teams. Ricky Lambert returns to his former club, the team he supported as a boy, and they can’t even spell his name right on the official team sheet.
Your #LFC team sheet for today. Great to see @JHenderson making Premier League start. pic.twitter.com/rvTk7ZNOhw
— Andy Kelly (@AndyK_LivNews) December 13, 2015
Aston Villa have lost 2-0 to Arsenal, which is good news for Newcastle both because they remain emphatically below them in ye Premier League, and also because they’ll be coming to St James’ Park next weekend with their morale very much unboosted.
Newcastle, meanwhile, are unchanged.
Updated
The teams
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Walker, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose, Dier, Carroll, Lamela, Alli, Eriksen, Kane. Subs: Bentaleb, Son, Vorm, Trippier, Chadli, Onomah, Davies.
Newcastle: Elliot, Janmaat, Mbemba, Coloccini, Dummett, Sissoko, Anita, Colback, Wijnaldum, De Jong, Cisse. Subs: Gouffran, Perez, Thauvin, Darlow, Sterry, Mbabu, Mitrovic.
Referee: Roger East.
With 30 minutes until kick-off, here is a reminder of how we will set up against @NUFC this afternoon. #COYS pic.twitter.com/cl6ckQohzW
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) December 13, 2015
TEAM NEWS: Here's how Newcastle United line up at @SpursOfficial this afternoon (kick-off 4pm GMT) #NUFC pic.twitter.com/3OkJyHsRdg
— Newcastle United FC (@NUFC) December 13, 2015
Updated
The teams are in, and Tom Carroll is making his first league start for Spurs. Full line-ups imminent …
Hello world!
Newcastle’s last 12 months away from home in full: played 18, won 2, drawn 2, lost 14, goals for 10, goals against 44, points 8, goal difference -34. Their one away win this season was the comically undeserved 1-0 success at Bournemouth, with the only other success in the last year being at a hapless, relegation-bound Hull in January, which was the Tigers’ fourth successive defeat without scoring. Tottenham, meanwhile, have lost only once in the league this season, back on the opening weekend, and even then they had to score the opposition’s winner for them, Kyle Walker prodding into his own net at Old Trafford.
It isn’t exactly encouraging. “We expect a very tough game against Newcastle,” Mauricio Pochettino said on Friday, a phrase that despite last week’s excellent victory over Liverpool still sounds a little silly. “It is a very dangerous game for us. We need to be very focused and ready to have the same motivation, energy and quality that we showed against Monaco.”
Steve McClaren also reckons Newcastle can come up with another performance to rank alongside last weekend’s, and has been encouraging his players to do just that using “constant messages, the right things, the right messages, and hope you get that performance and that luck on game day”. “It is,” he adds, “not rocket science”.
“It’s an unanswerable question, ‘Why can’t you keep reproducing that?’ It’s funny because when you play any sport, you’re against an opponent and sometimes that opponent has something to do with it and sometimes it’s your own fault,” he said. “It’s a combination of things. Week in, week out, you never know, you are just trying to get consistency, and that’s what we need now.”
A win today would take Newcastle to at least 15th – they’d overtake Bournemouth in 14th if they score at least four and win by at least three. A draw would keep them in 18th, albeit level on points with Swansea and Norwich. Spurs meanwhile need three points to move up a single place into fourth, above Manchester United, but they could drop to sixth if, say, they lose by one goal and Liverpool, playing West Brom this afternoon, win by a margin of at least 11. Yeah, sure, it sounds ridiculous, but then so does the idea of a Newcastle win. Funny old game. Anything can happen. Magic of the Premier League. And so on.
Anyway, and most importantly, welcome! Here’s an early picture from White Hart Lane, and a song to soundtrack it.
Updated
