ST JAMES’ PARK – By the time the heavens opened at St James’ Park, an early afternoon deluge that coincided with Newcastle washing away the last of the doubts that they are the coming force in the Premier League, Tottenham were already in hell.
A club whose chairman Daniel Levy stated with a straight face this week that they are the greatest in the world resembled a pitiable rabble here against their supposed closest rivals for a Champions League place.
Theirs was a full-scale, technicolour meltdown of the sort you so rarely see in elite sport, Newcastle ruthlessly exploiting their surfeit of spirit, strategy and character.
It was difficult to know where to look during the 21 minutes of unmitigated mayhem that Newcastle rattled in five goals but you could barely take your eyes off it.
Jacob Murphy’s wide-eyed reaction after belting a long range second goal summed up the emotion of the vast majority in the full house at St James’ Park as Newcastle detonated Tottenham’s Champions League pretensions while reinforcing their own ambitions.
Their midfield pistons Joelinton, Joe Willock, Sean Longstaff and Bruno Guimaraes overwhelmed their opponents, the electric Alexander Isak their tormenter-in-chief. A cacophonous crowd drank it all in as punch drunk Spurs players bickered with each other and beckoned to their overwhelmed bench.
Tottenham’s implosion, underscored by Pedro Porro’s abominable impression of a full-back, gave the impression the Premier League record win of 9-0 was under serious threat.
As Harry Kane pulled together his teammates for an impromptu team talk after the fourth goal, it felt like a fever dream, the howls of delight from the home fans mixed with peals of disbelieving laughter. But they were not finished, clubbing Tottenham with a fifth as Isak prodded past a hapless Lloris.
Their non-entity of a caretaker boss Cristian Stellini, floundering and so obviously desperately out of his depth, had set up with a back four in a team sheet that may as well have doubled up as a resignation letter.
He recognised the error of his ways quickly, shuffling his defence three times before finally settling on the back five he’d abandoned in the first place. Laudably he accepted responsibility afterwards but his players, who went into hiding, need to show the same accountability.
Rudderless on the pitch and a debacle off it, it’s difficult to know where Spurs go next. It’s safe to say it won’t be the Champions League, Newcastle United having taken a giant step towards the promised land with this brutal evisceration.
The Magpies were sensational. The provenance of the funds that are building this black and white juggernaut will leave many uneasy but it is Eddie Howe’s astute coaching and razor-sharp management rather than money that has made their rise feel inevitable.
This is the second top four rival they’ve blown away at St James’ Park in succession and it is not a fluke that they sit third in the table. To take them from the bottom of the Premier League to the best of the rest outside Arsenal and Manchester City is testament to the job Howe has done here.
Take the first stiff jab that Newcastle landed on Tottenham’s square jaw after just 61 seconds. Here was Joelinton, a record signing ridiculed for not being able to lay a glove on Rochdale under previous management but reborn under Howe, surging towards Spurs brittle back four.
When his fizzing shot bounced off the risible Lloris, it was Murphy who emerged from the melee to pounce. While recruitment has been stellar, that pair are symbolic of the standards Howe has driven up throughout the squad.
The goals kept coming. Fabian Schar’s wonderful pass picked out Joelinton, who rounded Lloris to make it two. Three minutes later Murphy advanced with no pressure and whacked a howitzer past the hapless Spurs ‘keeper. Isak scored two in two minutes, wriggling through a defence disintegrating in front of him.
The empty seats in the away end told their own story. The bedlam subsided slightly in the second half as Kane, one of few to emerge with credit, scored a consolation before his fellow England striker Callum Wilson scored with his first touch.
The symbolism of this bruising win will be lost on no-one. A forlorn Stellini recalled that Tottenham had put five past Newcastle almost a year ago in his post-match press conference and this left no-one in any doubt that a changing of the guard is taking place.
Lloris apologises for ’embarrassing’ display
Tottenham captain Lloris apologised for his team’s “embarrassing” capitulation at Newcastle as their season spiralled into farce.
The swaggering Magpies hit five in the first 21 minutes to take a giant leap towards Champions League football on a remarkable afternoon at St James’ Park.
Spurs’ performance descended into chaos as Stellini selected a back four and then quickly reverted to five at the back – a mistake he held his hands up to afterwards as he labelled the performance the “worst he’d ever seen”.
But Lloris said the problems went deeper than tactics. “It’s very embarrassing. We should apologise to the fans. We didn’t show a great face and we could not match the performance of the Newcastle players,” he told Sky Sports.
“We were late in all aspects of the game and we completely missed the first part of the game. The second half is a another story but it’s really painful.
“It is not even about tactics, it was just that we could not fight and were late in the aspects of the game. I think Newcastle just had a great performance, they were very aggressive and very offensive every time they had the ball.
“It is difficult right now to assess the performance but there was a lack of pride. To concede four goals in 20 minutes, you can get punched once or twice, but on the pitch it was something strange. It was like we could not even react or bounce back into the performance. Newcastle deserve a lot of credit for starting the game at 100 miles per hour. They knew exactly what to do.”
Spurs were forced to deny Levy had gone into the dressing room afterwards as Stellini insisted he wanted to stay in charge until the end of the season. It summed up a club in disarray.
“We cannot hide ourselves behind the club’s problems, we are professionals but we lacked too much,” Lloris said.
Meanwhile, Howe hailed an “electric performance” by his team to match the “electric atmosphere” at St James’ Park. Their 6-1 win was the second successive home game in which they blew a top four rival apart.
Howe, true to form, said complacency will not impinge his team’s challenge.
“It can’t. We have a lot of work to do, a lot of points to play for,” he said. “Either way nothing was going to be decided but hopefully we can take all the positives and use it to fuel us.”
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