Jamie Carragher slams ‘disgraceful’ Tottenham after Newcastle’s first-half defeat while Kieron Dyer claims Antonio Conte was right about the players | football news

[ad_1]

Newcastle took a 5-0 lead over Tottenham within 21 minutes at St James’ Park. Brackets from Alexander Isaacs and Jacob Murphy plus a goal from Jolinton gave the Magpies a stunning start before Harry Kane and Callum Wilson converted second half goals as the hosts cruised to a 6-1 victory.

Written by Jamie Carragher, football expert and columnist

18:03, United Kingdom, Sunday 23 April 2023

Jamie Carragher called Tottenham “disgraceful” and captain Hugo Lloris said he was “embarrassed” after scoring five goals in the first 21 minutes against Newcastle.

Jacob Murphy opened the scoring after just two minutes with another hit from Joelinton (8), a second from Murphy and a brace from Alexander Isak achieved an amazing result at St James’ Park.

They went 5-0 up in the space of 21 minutes, and were the second closest team to do so in Premier League history, after Man City v Watford in September 2019 – after just 18 minutes.

Ex-Tottenham defender Danny Rose, watching Sky Sports in disbelief, exclaimed: “All I could think about that first half was, ‘How am I out of a job?'”

Carragher wrote on social media: “Newcastle are fantastic, they’ve been all season. Tottenham are a disgrace! How have they managed to get into a back four for the first time this season, with [Pedro] Boro full-back who can not defend and [Ivan] Perisic who is the winger? Get a proper manager at the moment, not Conte’s colleague.”

Former Newcastle midfielder Kieron Dyer told Sky Sports: “I’m in disbelief. I thought Newcastle would win the game, but being 5-0 up after 21 minutes is unbelievable.

“There was a lot going on around Antonio Conte when he came out angry, but that’s why he did it. Everything he said came true.

“Tottenham cost the manager his job, they’re that bad. The midfield halves were terrible, the full backs weren’t up to it, the midfield was poor – (Oliver) Skip was the only one who really tried there.

“Tottenham let the fans down, let everyone associated with the club down and it took Stellini half an hour to move up to five at the back. By then, it was all over.”

Tottenham eventually lost 6-1 and dropped six points off the Champions League places after playing a game more than Newcastle. Just a week after their modest defeat at home to Bournemouth, their season entered crisis.

After the match, Tottenham captain Hugo Lloris – who came off at half-time – apologized to the club’s fans and described the defeat as “extremely embarrassing”.

Image: Tottenham have a 1.7 per cent chance of making the top four. What Stellini said after the match

“We weren’t prepared enough to play an important game. We have a good squad, but today no one showed how good (they) are,” Tottenham manager Christian Stellini told Sky Sports.

“It was my responsibility to decide the system today and we decided to do it differently because we had many injured people.

“It’s my responsibility to make that kind of decision, I made it and it was a mistake.

“I have to take responsibility because after we changed the system the game was over, we had to play better and we did. We scored and tried to fight back, but it’s very difficult to understand why the first 25 minutes were so bad.”

Lloris: We couldn’t fight back, we couldn’t fight back

Tottenham captain Hugo Lloris to Sky Sports:

“It’s very embarrassing. The first thing we probably should do is apologize to the fans who traveled, the fans who watched the game. We obviously didn’t show a great face today. We couldn’t match the performance of the Newcastle players. We were late in every aspect of the game, we missed out.” The first part of the match, obviously the second half is another story, it really hurts.

“It’s not even about tactics, it’s just that we couldn’t fight. Newcastle did great, they were very aggressive, they were very attacking. Every time they got the ball they looked forward and, I don’t know, it was difficult to assess and analyze the performance. And the first thing is not to feel proud.

“To concede four goals in 20 minutes…you can get punched once, twice. But it was a weird thing, like we couldn’t even react. We couldn’t even bounce back into the game, in the performance. But Newcastle deserve a lot of credit as they started the game.” They were powerful, very dynamic and knew exactly what to do with and without the ball.

“We can try to find excuses and analyze the performance but the first thing is we miss the battle. In football, if you go onto the pitch without wanting to show aggression, win the duels, win the battle, it makes things very difficult. Or you have to be good with the ball technically.” And tactically, it was a huge mess.

“We can’t hide behind the club’s problems. We are players and professionals and every time we go to the field we try to do our best but today there was a lot of lack in all aspects. Now there are two more very difficult games in the week and we have to recover.”

Spurs collapse – blow after blow

Two minutes – Joelinton is allowed in from the left. Lloris dodges his shot for Murphy to criticize.

6 min – Char’s long ball drifts over Romero, Boro Joelinton doesn’t follow and Lloris slips past in the second leg

9mins – Murphy is given a 30-yard run and blasts through a motionless Lloris from 30 yards!

19 minutes – Willock’s wonderful pass from the left side finds Isaac escaping from Dier, entering the goal and shooting in another.

21mins – Back-heel Longstaff lifts Isaacs to slam across Lloris for fifth.

Tottenham’s formation change goes wrong Christian Stellini talks about his formation change ahead of his game against Newcastle

Before kick-off, former Tottenham defender Rose told Sky Sports he was in favor of Stellini moving to a back four after the late defeat at home to Bournemouth.

“I’m glad they went to a four-legged defense,” Rose said. “Some of the games I’ve seen, they’ve played with five players at the back and two defensive midfielders – that’s seven games. With the goalkeeper, it’s eight.

“But they were still conceding two goals every game. For me, that’s not true. You’re not defending properly. So, it’s true that they went four in defense and three in midfield for the Newcastle game.

Image: Stellini saw his team fall 5-0 in the space of 21 minutes

“Once you win the midfield battle, that’s half the battle.”

But Tottenham lost every battle. Perisic and Boro – two uncredited full-backs – were terribly exposed as Newcastle ran riot in the first 21 minutes.

Spurs got back five back by bringing on Davinson Sanchez after 23 minutes for Pape Sarr, but the damage was already irreversibly done.

Gary Neville was scathing about Boro’s failure to save Murphy’s attacking goal. Christian Romero was not blameless.

At full time, Redknapp was unimpressed by Romero’s first Murphy goal.

He said, “Look at him with his hands behind his back.” “This is as bad a defensive piece as you’ll likely ever see. It’s been in the game for a long time now but just defend properly and move your feet and block the ball. The whole game.”

Spurs played in the back four twice under Conte, but rarely played. The last time was against Chelsea in January 2022.

Redknapp added: “They weren’t fast enough and they weren’t aggressive enough. Every goal you can score from a Spurs point of view, but you have to give Newcastle credit too.

“Boro and Perisic played full-back, it was not the time to experiment. Not the right place, not the right time as they have played with three backs all season. You have to be aware of the full-backs when you play the four who understand the situation.

“You still have to do the basics well.”

Tottenham’s crushing defeat by numbers, Newcastle won the Premier League game by more than 5 goals for the first time since January 2011 against West Ham (5-0), while Tottenham lost the Premier League match by 5+. Goals for the first time since December 2013 against Liverpool (0-5), after winning the reverse fixture in October, Newcastle completed a league double against Tottenham for the first time since 2015-16. The Magpies have failed to win this exact match in five consecutive seasons before today (D1 L4), Tottenham have conceded nine goals in their last two Premier League matches, and allowed three goals against Bournemouth in their previous match. This is the most goals conceded in two consecutive league matches since May 2003 (9-5 against Middlesbrough and 4 against Blackburn), and Tottenham have scored more than 50 Premier League goals and conceded this season – they are only the fourth team. They play in the first 32 matches in a season, after Queens Park Rangers in 1994-95 (match 32), Tottenham themselves in 2007-08 (match 30) and Leeds United in 2020-21 (match 32).

[ad_2]