Newcastle United held at St James' Park by spirited Spurs who scored with their their only two shots on target
Newcastle United twice let the lead slip at St James' Park tonight as Cristian Romero scored a brace to cancel out goals from Bruno Guimaraes and Anthony Gordon.
The Tottenham Hotspur goal lived the most charmed life we've seen a goal live for the longest time, for over an hour, as no matter what Newcastle threw Spurs' way, the ball just wouldn't go in the back of the net.
It took until 71 minutes for the spell to be broken, and it was half-time substitute Bruno Guimaraes who breached Guglielmo Vicario's goal in stunning fashion, lashing home a shot from the edge of the box.
The loathsome Cristian Romero pulled Spurs level just seven minutes later with a diving header at Aaron Ramsdale's near post after Lewis Hall made what was probably his only mistake of the match, standing off to allow Spurs to get a cross into the area.
Newcastle needed a contentious penalty award to restore their lead
Newcastle were back in front eight minutes later in bizarre circumstances. The Magpies were awarded what, in our view, was a very weak penalty. Dan Burn was being held in the box during the taking of a corner, but it seemed to be no worse than what happens during every corner ever.
VAR sent the referee to the monitor to check it, and having deemed that the defender was not looking at the ball and only holding on to Burn, the penalty was awarded.
Anthony Gordon stepped up and powered the ball home emphatically to restore Newcastle's lead. All they had to do was hang on for a few more minutes.
Who was your Player of the Match against Tottenham?
Where did the referee get nine extra minutes from?
Well, it would have been just a few more minutes if the referee hadn't managed to pull nine minutes of stoppage time out of his arse. We've no idea where he got that number from.
Anyway, Spurs only needed five of those extra nine to peg things back after Cristian Romero hit a superb bicycle kick, which was so wonderful that Dan Burn rolled out the red carpet for the ball and gave it free passage into the far corner.
You could maybe argue that Aaron Ramsdale could have done better, but it was Burn for us who should have done more.
Two shots on target and two goals simply isn't good enough from a defensive perspective. On one hand, we feel Spurs may have been hard done by with the penalty award, so they got justice, but on the balance of play, Newcastle should have been well out of sight without that fortuitous penalty anyway, so this does feel like two points dropped at the end of the day.
