The Good, The Bad, and The Average #4: NUFC player ratings vs. Spurs (h) [PL3]

Newcastle United occupy a lofty perch of fifth in the Premier League heading into the first international break of 2024/25, following an incredibly hard-fought and somewhat fortunate 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur at St James' on Sunday.

Eddie Howe's side found it hard going against the free-flowing football of their visitors, but managed to grind out another three points on home soil thanks to excellent goals from Harvey Barnes and Alexander Isak.

The Magpies huffed and puffed without reaching anywhere near their best levels, though there were still some eye-catching performances in black and white. Here are all of our player ratings from the contest, plus scores for Howe, our opponents, and the match referee.

Serena Taylor / Newcastle United

The Good

It's taken Tino Livramento a little while to get back up to speed this season, but the soon-to-be England international had an outstanding game against Tottenham. While he could probably offer a fair bit more in attack, he's surely the best one-on-one defender at the club and is getting better and better at reading the play and snuffing out danger.

On the opposite flank, it was great to see Lloyd Kelly have his first excellent game in our colours. His height and speed are two obvious advantages, but he does display real calmness in possession and even weighed in with a superb assist for Harvey Barnes. As things stand, he's probably nailed down the left-back spot for the foreseeable.

How about a word on Sean Longstaff as well? Is it a coincidence that as soon as Tonali becomes available our number 36 puts in quality performances back-to-back, or are we just extremely cynical? Whatever the reason for his upturn, it's very welcome, with the central midfielder making twice as many tackles as Bruno and Joelinton combined.

Nick Pope and Emil Krafth were part of a backline that was unlucky to concede, with our big goalkeeper making a few impressive saves to keep us ahead. His kicking was a negative again, but it won't improve at this stage of his career. Krafth has been a dependable deputy for Schär, but we're looking forward to the Swiss defender returning.

Up front, Alexander Isak had a pretty disappointing game but came up with the vital winning goal, while Harvey Barnes struggled to get involved in the contest but finished beautifully to open the scoring. Both of them are such lethal finishers that you can forgive them an off day as long as they score, but we do need more from them in open play.

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The Bad

We've waxed lyrical about Dan Burn since his return to the heart of our defence, but he had a rough game. In addition to the own goal that has been mocked the world over at this point, he made a few other errors that put us into trouble. Still, his performance was far from a disaster and he's had many more good games than bad as a centre-back.

There's still something not quite right with Anthony Gordon, though, with question marks over his attitude and output at this point. While he might not have been thrilled at being fielded on the right to accommodate the in-form Barnes, there's no excuse for a lack of effort and tracking back, especially when it's you who has lost the ball in the first place...

Serena Taylor / Newcastle United

The Average

Bruno Guimarães and Joelinton could barely get near the athletic Tottenham midfield, with the Brazilian pair committing eight fouls and only winning three clean tackles. Joelinton still came up with the critical piece of play to set Murphy away for the winning goal, however, while Bruno relieved the pressure in the late stages as only he can.

Jacob Murphy was having an absolute stinker until he raced away onto Joelinton's pass to set Isak up for the winner, giving the ball away pretty much every time he had it. Introduced on the hour mark for Barnes, the winger had us pining for Almirón before his vital contribution, but he seemed to settle down from there and did alright.

Sandro Tonali, Lewis Hall, and Miguel Almirón also came from the bench and did little to memorably impact proceedings, though Tonali and Hall certainly contributed to a resolute defensive effort in the final quarter of the match. It was particularly good to see the Italian back in action at SJP and he got a superb reception from the crowd

While it's hard to knock Eddie Howe for an unbeaten start to the campaign, it's difficult to not be concerned about the level of performance the team is putting out. We've arguably been second-best in all three league games to date and perhaps the international break is coming at an ideal time in that respect. We can only get better.

Does anything ever really change at Tottenham Hotspur? While they were certainly the better team they still left God's country empty-handed, with their 'all fart, no sh*t' style of football easy on the eye without ever really being penetrating. We appreciate they were missing a few big players, but we didn't see much to fear from them this season.

Finally, to Robert Jones. It makes a pleasant change to have little to say about the referee but we don't recall him getting much wrong, aside from perhaps letting James 'Gobshite' Maddison get away with too much before his inevitable booking. More officials like this, please.

Serena Taylor / Newcastle United

The Breakdown

This was a difficult game to rate, as we got the result without playing all that well, but here's how we saw it:

The XI

Nick Pope – 7

Tino Livramento – 8 ⭐️

Emil Krafth – 7

Dan Burn – 5

Lloyd Kelly – 8 (off 68')

Sean Longstaff – 8 (off 68')

Bruno Guimarães (c) – 6

Joelinton – 6

Anthony Gordon – 5 (off 90+4')

Alexander Isak – 7

Harvey Barnes – 7 (off 61')

The Subs

Jacob Murphy – 6 (on 61')

Sandro Tonali – 6 (on 68')

Lewis Hall – 6 (on 68')

Miguel Almirón – 6 (on 90+4')

The Gaffer

Eddie Howe – 6

The Opposition

Tottenham Hotspur – 6

The Ref

Robert Jones – 6

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The Next

Following what will surely be an interminable international break, Eddie's high-flying Mags are next in action against Wolves. The match will take place at Molineux on Sunday the 15th of September at 4.30 p.m. and will again be live on Sky. Howay the lads!