Teddeer

Rather have a defender who is better at defending than a defender who is not so good at defending but better at attacking. The clue for me is in the word 'defender'.

Well surely some of their 'covid positives' will have completed their period of isolation by Sunday.

As far as I understand they only have to count U23 players who have appeared for the first team in their list of 13 plus a goalkeeper. The rest don't count. Not making excuses for them as I agree with most that they are playing the system because postponing our game is massively to their benefit. It irks me because we went through an horrendous injury crisis last season and had to soldier on with what we had.

From what I read here people are not suggesting big club bias or an anti Saints agenda. I think it's more a distrust of Newcastle and suspicion that they are playing the system and using covid as a smokescreen to buy them time because of injuries notably to ASM and also they hope to have new signings in place by the time they play their next league match which they want to be the Watford game in mid January.

That's a good point...there was far less simulation and rolling around screaming like girls when they wanted to increase the pace of the game.

Agree

As I said earlier Bednarek did not foul Kane when Taylor gave Spurs a very soft free kick which led to them getting the ball in the box for the Salisu tackle. So that poor decision cost us a player, a goal and a big percentage of our chance to win the game. Think the major decisions on the day that went against each side were about even.

Just to balance this up we were really hard done by in the incident in the first half where Taylor gave an extremely soft free kick to them for a nothing challenge on Kane by Bednarek. It was never a foul but, from the free kick, Spurs worked the ball into our box and Salisu brought down Son for the penalty and his second yellow. Watch it back and it was never a foul by Bednarek and Taylor's poor officiating caused us to lose a player, a goal and possibly the chance of taking all 3 points. If Doherty's 'foul' on Fraser wasn't then nor was Bednarek's 'foul' on Kane. Swings and roundabouts not all 'poor Spurs'.

I agree in some ways as defending starts from the front. However, we had two solid banks of four and were coping reasonably with what Spurs were throwing at us and I didn't think we ever looked swamped or overwhelmed. For me it made absolute sense to bring on Broja and ask him to be our outlet to give us a slim chance of nicking all 3 points and it very nearly paid off. It also kept them more honest at the back as I'm sure their defenders were aware that Broja is a handful and far more of a goal threat than Long so they couldn't overly commit for fear of losing a game they expected to win. All in all Ralph managed the game well especially when we went down to 10 and I think Broja may have been instructed to concentrate more on attack than closing down the likes of Winks because we did need an out ball at that stage of the game.

Thanks for stating the bleeding obvious and I was aware of that 🙂 On another note, as far as I recall, Newcastle finished the game against Man Utd with 11 men. So they only need to find another 2 plus a goalkeeper who have played for the first team. All I can say is there must be an epidemic of covid in their squad if they can't meet that criteria. Funny that this coincides with injuries to their two star players plus the imminent opening of the transfer window when they are set to splash the cash so if they get our game called off they won't play again in the league until mid Jan when they are due to face Watford. I'm in agreement with Ralph that only covid cases should count not injuries. Nobody cared when we were down to the bare bones in the second half of last season so why should Newcastle get the sympathy vote.

Wonder whether they'd be trying to call games off if Wilson and ASM had not picked up injuries and they'd gone on to beat Man Utd as they should have done. Eddie Howe would have been crowing and they'd have been chomping at the bit to play the next games whether they had a few out through covid or not. Smacks of cheating the system.

Looked far happier and a much better player today on his natural side of the field. Very good performance from him.

If offered in advance would have taken a point against Spurs as we rarely get much off them. Feared the worst when the team was announced but didn't they play superbly up until Salisu got sent off. In hindsight he'd have been better off accepting Son was away and hoping he'd either cock it up or Fraser would pull off a save. It left us having to concentrate on keeping two banks of four and what a great effort from the whole team to limit Spurs and hold out for the point. Would have loved to see Broja's effort fly in but I guess that would have been asking too much. He certainly put the fear of God into Dier when he came on. Shout outs to Long and Valery who did a great job having played very little this season. I'm trying to decide whether Diallo played well or not because I didn't notice him at all - sometimes that is the sign of an accomplished performance. Great goal from JWP and nice to see him score a cracker from open play - like to see more of that from him.

Man Utd were hopeless. Where did they get those two full backs? Rashford very poor as were Fernandes, Fred and McTomminay. Couldn't string two passes together and made Newcastle look like Barcelona at their best. Yet Newcastle still couldn't beat them although you have to say they were unlucky.

Agree. Some refs may have decided it warranted a red but don't think our friend Friend was ever going to send off Bowen.

You've lost me with that.

A goalkeeper regressed under the tutelage of our brilliant team of specialist goalkeeping coaches....surely not.

Irony lost on you then?

He needs to get back to whipping corners in with pace and making sure they miss the first man. Not sure what has gone wrong with his corners but they are certainly less dangerous than they used to be. If only his corner kicks were as lethal as Salisu's now legendary long throw-ins 🙂

Agree with others, this will be a tough game to get anything out of. Spurs had a comfortable win against Palace and were able to coast home and take off some of their star players. We were involved in a battle of attrition with West Ham which would have taken a lot out of our players. With only a short recovery period and the fact that they clearly have a stronger squad than us Spurs must be firm favourites to win this. However, we've only lost once at home in a game against Wolves that we should have drawn at the worst so I'm hoping we'll be ruthless in front of goal and Fraser plays out of his skin which might get us a draw or even a win. Think we'll need the rub of the green plus a few decisions going our way. The West Ham win was a bonus so 3 points from these two games would be acceptable but let's be greedy and take 4 or 6.

I don't think Broja has received enough credit for trying to stay on his feet and finish his run with a strike at goal. Dawson was just desperate to stop him by whatever means, that was his intent so for me it has to be a red.

But the 'accident' only happens because he was wrestling Broja and his momentum caused the stumble and foul in the box. The second foul is a direct consequence of the first so I can't see how that can be deemed as accidental.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Bednarek actually had a good glance over his shoulder to check exactly where Benrahma was and then chose not to mark him. These are not minor errors and we have seen Jack Stevens do the same. The coaches should be spotting this and hammering players for it so that they finally learn that is is not acceptable.

If that was a genuine attempt to play the ball maybe you thought you were watching rugby. Broja out-muscled and outpaced Dawson who wrestled with him over several yards culminating in his momentum causing him to tumble forward and wipe him out from behind inside the area. That was no attempt to play the ball.

I couldn't believe what Bednarek did for the Antonio goal. He had two options, either a) step away from our goal and hope to leave him in an offside position (replays indicate that'd have worked) or b) step towards our goal where he had no chance of intervening and would only ensure Antonio was onside. For reasons only best known to himself an international defender chose option b). Quite staggering really.