Tottenham Hotspur inadvertently helped out their London rivals Chelsea yesterday by capitulating to Newcastle United at St James' Park.
For the second season in a row Newcastle asserted their dominance of Tottenham at St James' Park, and while the 4-0 win yesterday wasn't as spectacular as the opening 23 minutes of the 6-1 hammering of last year, it was equally impressive for other reasons.
Newcastle only had 27% possession in the game, yet despite that managed to win 4-0, racked up 18 shots and 16 corners. Spurs managed 11 shots, but that sounds generous and they only managed three corners, which makes sense as Timo Werner seemed more interested in knocking a pigeon off his Gallowgate End perch than testing Martin Dubravka.
Then just to add insult to injury, Spurs' failure to impact the game has handed their London rivals Chelsea a £24million windfall.
As part of the deal to bring Lewis Hall to Newcastle in the summer, it was agreed that the Chelsea player would join the Magpies on a season-long loan but upon it being confirmed that Newcastle would finish higher than 15th in the Premier League, that loan move would become a permanent deal.
The price agreed was £28million for the 19-year-old with Newcastle paying £4million up front to facilitate the loan.
Newcastle's win over Spurs means that Newcastle could lose every remaining game this season and not finish lower than 15th which has triggered the permanent move of Lewis Hall and therefore Newcastle now owe Chelsea £24million.
I'm sure fans will see that as a small price to pay for such an epic victory and what no doubt turned into a canny Saturday in the Toon.
There had been plenty of speculation over the season about what the clause in the deal was and whether Eddie Howe was actively trying to avoid triggering it, but we now know that Howe was just making sure that Hall was ready before throwing him into the team.
With all of the injuries in defence going into the final few games, we expect that our new signing will feature quite heavily during the run-in.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
13 | 18 | 34 |
2 |
Arsenal
|
13 | 12 | 25 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
13 | 12 | 25 |
4 |
Brighton
|
13 | 5 | 23 |
5 |
Manchester City
|
13 | 3 | 23 |
6 |
Nottingham Forest
|
13 | 3 | 22 |
7 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
13 | 14 | 20 |
8 |
Brentford
|
13 | 3 | 20 |
9 |
Manchester United
|
13 | 4 | 19 |
10 |
Fulham
|
13 | 0 | 19 |
11 |
Newcastle United
|
13 | 0 | 19 |
12 |
Aston Villa
|
13 | -3 | 19 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
13 | 1 | 18 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
13 | -7 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
13 | -11 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
13 | -11 | 10 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
13 | -7 | 9 |
18 |
Wolves
|
13 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Ipswich
|
13 | -11 | 9 |
20 |
Southampton
|
13 | -15 | 5 |