That winning feeling!
To say it was a game of two halves would be an understatement. The first was as dire as it could get and it looked to be another long afternoon of football ahead.
Then after a rocket from Alan Pardew at half time, the lads came out and showed what can happen when you believe in yourselves and give it your all. Here is what was said.
Pardew said: “There were a few strong words.
“It's not nice as a manager to go in and bark out orders but sometimes it's necessary just to shake people up because we needed shaking up.
“We needed to offer a threat. We're Newcastle United. We're not a small club. We're a big club and we were playing like a small club.
“We were giving too much possession to Tottenham, too much space. We never made a challenge. And we were fortunate to come in a 1-0.
“So I reminded them about the fundamentals of a Premier League game and we come out with a much stronger attitude.”
After that epic speech, it only took about seven seconds for the reaction Pardew and us fans were all looking for! When from the second half kick off, a beautiful through ball from Colback was met at full tilt by a rampaging Sammy Ameobi and he lashed it into the back of the net with his left foot. After my initial reaction of WOW! My next thought was 'that is the kind of thing that normally happens too us not for us'.
From there we really started to press Spurs hard and to me they looked defeated and tired. If you have been a Toon fan long enough, you get to know that look when things start to get tough and no one on the park wants to know about it. And when Perez nodded the ball home for our second and his first ever goal, I must say it was the happiest I had been for some time when watching a game that Newcastle was playing in. I was really pleased for both Sammy and Ayoze, it will do their confidence a world of good. From there until the 95th minute there was the usual edge of the seat stuff and desperate defending. Sissoko had probably his best game for us and the defence did work well as unit. But at the end of the day, the credit must go to the goal scorers. Not because they were the stand outs but because both goals were very well taken by two young players that are looking to make their mark and they will be all the better for it.
We are not out of the woods yet but some more fighting displays like that, a bit of luck and some moments of magic, we might just make something of this season!
Bring on Liverpool!
