Wednesday 30th January 2002, 7.45pm

FA PREMIERSHIP, WHITE HART LANE

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 1  (Iversen 16)

Sullivan
Perry
Richards
King
Davies (Etherington 70)
Sherwood
Poyet (Leonhardsen 86)
Anderton
Taricco
Sheringham (Rebrov 86)
Iversen

Subs not used: Keller.

NEWCASTLE UNITED 3  (Acuna 67, Shearer 69 Bellamy 78)

 

Referee: - M Dean

Attendance: - 35,798

After the heroics of last week, it was back down to earth with a bump as Spurs had no answer to the pace attack of Newcastle who won the match with three second half goals after we had looked fairly comfortable at half time with a 1-0 lead. More is required for the cup challenges later in the season (and looking further ahead, the board need to get their hand in their own or someone else’s pocket to get some money to enable Hoddle to develop the squad), but we should remember that we were turned over by a top three outfit who have won at both Scumbury and Elland Road in the last couple of months.

Walking up the high road before the match, I heard someone say “there’s that bloke from the Telly” – looking across I saw him pointing inside a café and sure enough it was our very own Daniel “its gone in” Wynne getting a pre match coffee, and there was no getting away from the great man as on entering the Lane his commentary from the Chelsea match was booming out across the ground.

Spurs lined up with the expected team – Richards in for the injured Gardner and Les, who was resting his crocked head for another week, watched the match from the players tunnel. Newcastle were without Dyer and Speed, but still fielded a strong line up, which has seen them, perform well above expectations this season.

The rain fell on White Hart Lane as Spurs kicked off attacking the Park Lane, which made the pitch, which is looking a bi threadbare very skiddy. The skiddy surface worked in Spurs favour while the rain fell in the first half as all through balls to Bellamy skidded on to Sully. 

Solano fired a long range shot over in the first couple of minutes, before a great bit of Skill by Sherwood sent Iversen away down the right and the Log did well to force a corner. We played some neat stuff in the opening quarter with Sherwood, Anderton and Poyet all responsible for good moves that had Newcastle on the back foot, and perhaps the best chance fell to Davies from a cross from the left from Treacle but the ball arrived at an awkward height and as he tried to control the ball it ran away from him and Given smothered the chance.

The goal came from a corner on the West stand/Park Lane side and started out similar to Sherwood’s goal against Chelsea. This time the ball was intercepted, but a ricochet took it to Ledley who fired a low shot, which was cleared off the line. The ball looped out to Deano towards the edge of the box, and he headed intelligently to the left hand side where Iversen appeared in front of Poyet (who’d taken a crack in the nuts in winning the corner, and was not the same player for the rest of the match) and rammed the ball home right footed from 10 yards for his second goal in two games.

Richards generally had a good match at the back for most of the first half and had a couple of chances to score himself – firstly running onto an Anderton ball into the box, but not being able to divert it in, and then smashing the ball high into the Park Lane from a flicked on corner which left him unmarked 8 yards out. If we’d have taken either of those chances……… or when Davies low shot forced a save from Given it might have been a very different picture.

Deano unfortunately deteriorated as the game went on, and gave another suicidal back pass header to Sully similar to the cock up for the goal that sunk us at Leeds, but Sully was alert and brave and came out to smother Bellamy’s effort, earning himself a leg injury in the process. Talk of Japan and Korea for him is very far fetched and he is becoming the new Perry – but Ledley has a good chance of making the England squad a capped a good display with a couple of great bits of skill on the ball in either half. In the first half he delighted all of us in the lower shelf by beating 4 players with wriggles and twists and as half time approached while we were not safe with a 1-0 score line – things did look fairly comfortable. 

Robson signalled his intentions right from the start of the second period being on Robert for Elliott. In theory this should have given us just as good a chance to get a second as it did getting them back in the match.

The Spurs fans were superb in singing Glenn Hoddle’s Blue and White Army for well over 10 minutes at the start of the half as well as a sustained “We are Tottenham from the Lane” after that the tide was beginning to turn on the pitch and we were forced further and further back.

Spurs offered little going the other way and we could not hold the ball long enough to give the defenders some breathing space. Davies who has been excellent in recent weeks could make no impression on the combined attentions of Robert and Distin and we had no out ball.

The goal had been coming for a while and it was no more than they deserved. Richards pulled back Bellamy as the young Welshman went to the by-line on the right hand side and I feared the worst that he would be second yellowed and sent off but fortunately for us he remained on the pitch, but our reprieve was only temporary. Robert dinked the ball over and Acuna, a four foot circus freak popped up at the back post to no home unchallenged.

Ted stood on the edge of the box - head in hands - as for some reason he did not run with Acuna who he was supposed to be marking. This was the low point on what was not one of his best halves for Spurs, where he did not seem to have the desire to drive the team forward when we needed it (he was not alone in this) and managed to waste our best chance of the second period when shooting tamely when another rocket similar to the goal he scored against Chelsea was more in order. I’m sure Ted will be back to play his part in the cup final and his record in important matches is phenomenal, but tonight was not his night.

Within a minute or so, the lead that we had held for around 50 minutes was turned into a deficit. Distan had a fine match for them, but every time he took a throw on it was a foul throw. From one of these, Bellamy did Mr Ed on the near touchline and legged off towards goal before whipping a low accurate centre, which was guided home by Shearer at the far post.

Soon after this, a less than pleased Sully had a standing row with Richards and angrily brushed his arm away. No matter how bad things get, this sort of thing should never occur on the pitch and Hoddle should bollock and fine both of these two and make sure that this never happens again.

With Ted looking a bit out of sorts, it would not have been asking too much to give Rebrov a chance of 20 minutes, but we got Etherington in place of Davies instead - which surprised and disappointed a lot of people. Rebrov might not be all what we hoped when he signed but he was surely a better option that Etherington who has yet to convince in the Premiership.

Spurs tried to get back into it, but things were not coming off and we lost the ball too easily too often. Anderton played one fantastic ball to Iversen that dropped on his boot in stride as he ran in to the box, but he could get no power into his effort and it was easily gathered by Given. Newcastle remained rampant and scored a third when Bellamy ran diagonally across the pitch to our box, played a one two with Hughes and slotted home the rebound and the match was rapidly becoming a disaster.

As usual the wankers all decided to go with Spurs losing &12 minutes to go – they pay their money and are entitled to go whenever they want – but it seems such a waste. Fortunately we did not concede any more and that was that.

We all sloped off for a miserable walk up White Hart Lane in the rain. While the defeat is disappointing, and our lack of league points becoming a little worrying. We have not managed to score more than one a match in the league since Fulham, and as we are not good enough to keep clean sheets this has been the root of our inability to accumulate more points over the last two months. We have a big match on our agenda next Tuesday and the biggest match of the season at the end of Feb – so while we can afford a slip up today, we cannot afford similarly performances in these matches.

The Word of Hod

At half-time I felt we were probably worth more than a one goal lead. We nullified everything they had attacking wise - I can't remember them creating anything in the first half. Quite frankly, the second half shows what happens to you in this league if you switch off. I didn't think the attitude and work rate was there and consequently we get punished"

"They've got good players on the pitch, we knew that from the start. The likes of Shearer and Bellamy, you can't give them opportunities like we did in the second half and hope to win the game. So they punished us when they got the chances."

"We may have been a bit leggy, a bit tired. They took a chance second half and played two v two at the back a lot of times, but we didn't look sharp enough to really capitalise on that. That was disappointing as well."

Sullivan (7/10) – Despite being beaten three times, was back to his best with an excellent save from a weak Richards back header in the first half and was generally ok.

Perry (5/10) – Mr Ed was often exposed by the pace and excellent play of the Newcastle forwards and it was not one of his best matches

Richards (6/10) – Started brightly, winning the ball, setting up Iversen for the goal and nearly scoring himself, but was lucky to stay on the pitch in conceding the free kick for the equaliser and deteriorated as the match went on against the excellent Newcastle attack

King (7/10) – Had a good match, when most about him were struggling and delighted the crowd with some lovely stuff on the ball

Taricco (6/10) – Had a tough match up against Solano and generally did ok, without having his normal level of contribution

Davies (6/10) – Like Powell of Charlton, Distan of Newcastle proved equal to Davies in his wing back role and while he did his best he was not able to contribute as much as he normally does.

Anderton (7/10) – Had a fairly good match – getting involved in the middle and for the most part playing some good passes.

Sherwood (6/10) – A solid match for Sherwood – he gives us an extra dimension of class that Nutter was not able to do, but was found wanting for pace as Newcastle poured forward in the second period.

Poyet (5/10) – Started brightly with some excellent passes and linkups, but never managed to make the same contribution after getting a kick in the nuts in winning the corner for our goal.

Sheringham (5/10) – Not a good match for the great man – but he has had a fine season and is allowed the occasional off match, as long as he gets it right in the big matches, which I’m sure he will.

Iversen (6/10) – Took his goal well and generally did ok

Subs:

Etherington (6/10) – Given 20 minutes and apart from one decent run did not cause Newcastle too many problems

Leonhardsen (6/10) – Had a chance to score at the end and did ok in his 4 minute cameo

Rebrov (6/10) – We needed him on much earlier, and even in his 4 minutes played a great through pass which showed what we were missing. I’m not saying that he should be brought on all the time, but today was definitely an occasion where we should have seen more of the little bloke

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