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Tottenham players to refund fans after 'embarrassing' EPL defeat by Newcastle United

Spurs were left shellshocked by their hammering by the Toon Army. (Getty Images: Stu Forster)

Defeats don't come much worse than the one Tottenham suffered at St James' Park on Sunday.

Not only is the 900km round-trip the longest Spurs' fans will face in the Premier League this year, but many only stayed to watch 20 minutes of action.

Newcastle emphatically dented Spurs' vanishingly small top-four chances by taking a 5-0 lead inside 21 minutes, as stand in coach Cristian Stellini paid for experimenting with a back four with his job.

The eventual 6-1 thrashing was so bad that Spurs' players have offered to reimburse the 3,000 travelling supporters the cost of their match ticket.

"As a squad, we understand your frustration, your anger," Spurs' players said in a statement.

"It wasn't good enough. We know words aren't enough in situations like this but believe us, a defeat like this hurts.

"We appreciate your support, home and away, and with this in mind, we would like to reimburse fans with the cost of their match tickets from St James' Park.

The away fans, housed in the top tier of the Leazes stand, did not hang around for long. (Getty Images: AMA/Robbie Jay Barratt)

"We know this does not change what happened on Sunday and we will give everything to put things right against Manchester United on Thursday evening when, again, your support will mean everything to us."

Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris had apologised to supporters immediately following the result, saying the team "didn't show a good face today".

"It's very embarrassing. The first half is we should apologise to the fans who travelled and the fans who watched the game," Lloris said.

"We didn't show a good face today. We could not match the performance of Newcastle's players.

"It's not even about talking of tactics. it's just we couldn't fight. We were late in all the aspects of the game.

"Newcastle had a great performance. They were aggressive. They got what they were looking for, and it's difficult right now to assess now. But the first thing was probably lack of pride.

"Consider four goals in 20 minutes. You can get punched once, twice, and concede but on the pitch was something strange. We could not even react, bounce back into the performance."

Cristian Stellini was in charge of Spurs for one month. (Getty Images: AMA/Robbie Jay Barratt)

Stelini, who took over from Antonio Conte in late March, took responsibility for the defeat.

"It was my fault, absolutely. I take responsibility for the first 35 minutes," he said.

"We have to apologise to everyone and I take reasonability because it was my decision to change the system."

The Spurs fans will not be reimbursed for their travel expenses — which given a train ticket would have set fans back at least $100, would be scant consolation. 

The defeat — Tottenham's heaviest in the Premier League since a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Liverpool in 2013 — leaves Spurs in sixth spot, one point behind Aston Villa with a game in hand, and three above Liverpool.

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