Newcastle vs. Tottenham score: Atrocious Spurs concede five goals in 21 minutes, blow Champions League chances

This was to be the start of a defining week for Tottenham. The first 20 minutes at St. James’ Park told the world more than enough. This is a team devoid of organization, character and quality. The matches against Manchester United and Liverpool that follow this calamitous display will not offer any hope of an unlikely top-four finish. Instead, Spurs look ready to tumble further down the league, out of the European places and into midtable.

Even that would be a generous reflection of their performance in this 6-1 defeat at Newcastle, a team who have streaked ahead of them in no time. Before kickoff, this was fourth against fifth, a playoff for Champions League riches in theory. In practice, it felt rather more significant even than that. This may yet go down as a landmark moment for the victors, a day where they firmly established themselves among the Premier League’s top four. With Saudi riches backing them, they are well placed to entrench that position. 

This may well be the dying day of a Tottenham dynasty that has been slowly disassembling since losing the Champions League final in 2019. As Mauricio Pochettino’s great side aged out or moved on to pastures new, their presence in Europe’s big leagues became more fleeting but they tended to be in the mix for a top-four finish at least. Now, with five tricky games left to play, it seems eminently plausible that they could be lapped by Aston Villa, Liverpool, Brighton and perhaps even Fulham. Only once in the last 16 seasons have Tottenham missed out on European football and the riches that come with it entirely. That may be about to change. How could a team who delivered a performance as wretched as this represent the Premier League on the continental stage?

It would be all too easy to blame this performance on Cristian Stellini abandoning the back three Tottenham have started in, without fail, for well over a year. They have recruited and molded players to fit into that particular system. Pedro Porro, for instance, has not played a club game in a four-man defense since he turned out on loan for Girona in 2018-19. Across from him, Ivan Perisic’s qualities as a wing back — crossing, overlapping, final third link play — do not serve him at all well in a four-man defense. 

Systems only explain so much, however. You can have 11 men back or one, if your response to Heung-min Son being muscled off the ball by Fabian Schar is to stand around, gawping at Jacob Murphy as he teed himself to bend the ball beyond Hugo Lloris from range. This was a team that should have been scrapping for every ball as they tried to overcome an early two-goal deficit. They responded by throwing in the towel. In a first half played overwhelmingly in their own third of the pitch, Tottenham won just a third of their duels.

That is when they got near enough actually to challenge Newcastle. Neither Pedro Porro nor the atrocious Cristian Romero, who had roamed upfield in the fashion a center back really ought not to when playing in a four-man defense, got near to Joelinton in the first minute. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg was flatfooted, allowing the Brazilian to get a shot away that could only be parried to Murphy for the game’s opener. 

Porro and Romero were at fault again for the second, the latter in particular ambling in pursuit of a long ball over the top that dropped at Joelinton’s feet. It took only two minutes for Alexander Isak to get a double of his own, with 21 minutes played it was 5-0. Only Watford in September 2019 had conceded as many goals at a faster clip. They were playing against Manchester City. Frankly, the gap between today’s opposition felt comparable. 

If there were a way to make matters worse it might have been in hauling off Pape Matar Sarr, the youngest player on the pitch made the fall guy for a collective display utterly lacking in nous and composure. Davinson Sanchez, booed off in last week’s loss to Bournemouth, was thrust back into the fire. They might have only conceded one more from then on out but the best you could say of their performance was that it was no longer so abject as to make you suspect Newcastle might be on for double figures. They could have come closer had Dan Burn’s header not been blocked his own teammate or if Anthony Gordon had lifted the ball a little higher over the right leg of substitute goalkeeper Fraser Forster.

Ultimately they settled for just one more in the second half. A poacher of Callum Wilson’s quality was hardly going to let this game pass by without getting on the scoresheet, he was the only player live to the danger when Romero turned his back on Miguel Almiron’s strike, poking in at close range as the Magpies scored six goals in a Premier League match for the first time in over seven years. It may be their most remarkable top-flight win since, down to 10 men, they put five past Pochettino’s Spurs on the final day of a 2015-16 season that ended with them relegated from the top flight. Seven years later, they are bound for the Champions League.

Before Wilson wrapped up the scoring, Harry Kane’s driving run along the left and bent effort into the far corner felt like as much of a message to the suitors who will be lining up for him in the summer. He is the last ray of hope for Tottenham supporters, many of whom had begun the long journey down from the nosebleed seats at St. James’ Park when Isak netted the fifth. 

They could hardly blame Kane if he concluded once more that enough is enough. If he is staying at Spurs it is out of a sense of loyalty or a profound desire to just win any old trophy. This team has blown the chance to even make the Champions League, let alone win it. On their current trajectory, they could miss out on the Europa League and even the Conference League.