Spurs welcome Newcastle to North London
By Ian King
A big midweek win may have settled Spurs nerves, but Newcastle have defied negative pre-season predictions so far
Spurs return to The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for their first home Premier League match against Newcastle United having failed to deliver last weekend. A disjointed and lethargic performance at Brentford hinted that spending hundreds of millions of pounds has not fixed the problems that have been so obvious over the last two seasons, though a 5-1 midweek win against Charlton Athletic may have settled a few nerves for Roberto De Zerbi.
Their opponents had a difficult summer following the departure of Eddie Howe and the arrival of Matthias Jaissle, but made an encouraging start to their League season. On an emotional afternoon at St James’ Park as they bade farewell to Kevin Keegan, Newcastle United defied pre-season predictions that they could struggle this season with a strong performance against Liverpool which would have ended in a win had it not been for a 99th-minute Liverpool penalty which rescued a 2-2 draw. They followed this up with giving some of their fringe players a runout for their narrow 3-2 win against West Bromwich Albion in the Carabao Cup in midweek.
Newcastle have an excellent recent record in this fixture
Newcastle’s record against Spurs has been good in recent years. Over the last four seasons, they’ve only lost once against them, and they’ve won five and drawn one of their last six meetings. Newcastle won the corresponding fixture between the two teams last season 2-1 at The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Spurs haven’t beaten Newcastle at all since December 2023. The good news for them there is that their last two wins against them were by a handsome margin; 4-1 in 2023, and 5-1 in April 2022. The one thing that we might reasonably expect from this fixture is goals. They haven’t played a goalless draw since August 1971.
Sávio made quite a splash on his debut against Charlton Athletic
There had been some conjecture over the wisdom of paying Manchester City £75 million for The Artist Formerly Known as Savinho, but a goal and an assist – where the assists was a shot which deflected in off Ben Davies – as part of a 19-minute cameo against Charlton in the Carabao Cup certainly indicated that he’s keen to make this move work.
Newcastle, meanwhile, may have two new arrivals of their own to show off. Amar Dedić has arrived for £30 million from Benfica and promptly chipped in on his debut with two assists in the win against West Brom. Before the match, Newcastle showed off Nico González, who’s arrived from Manchester City for £52 million, before the start of that match and he may be brought in for this one.
Both sides have new signings to show off, but a couple of them may not make the cut this weekend
Spurs have already managed to pick up a couple of fresh injuries to add to those that they’re carrying over from last season. Xavi Simons (ACL), Wilson Odobert (knee), Dejan Kulusevski (knee) and Mohammed Kudus (thigh) will all be missing, as well as James Maddison, who’s missing the next couple of weeks with a fractured shoulder, and Pape Mata Sarr, who has a thigh injury. Micky van de Ven and Pedro Porro both returned from the bench against Charlton, though they may remain there, for this match, although van de Ven having been appointed captain in the summer might lead to him starting.
Sávio made a convincing case to start this match against Charlton, but while Omar Marmoush is also just about to arrive from City, if he does get registered in time for this match, it’s unlikely that he’ll be involved. Another Spurs player to have made a convincing case to start this one is Mikey Moore, who scored his first Spurs goal and picked up an assist in midweek. Sandro Tonali could return to play against the team who he left for Spurs in the summer.
Dan Burn, Joelinton and William Osula will all be missing for Newcastle. Presuming Osula to be absent, Nick Woltemade is his most likely replacement. It had been hoped that Tino Livramento would be back for the start of the season, but he missed the Liverpool match and was left out for the West Brom match too, and the likelihood of him taking part against Spurs is slim.
Spurs and Newcastle may both still be settling, at the end of a very busy transfer window
With just one league game and an EFL Cup match to go on, and with a lot of changes at both clubs over the last three months, trying to pick a winner between these two teams feels like a particularly fiendish task, because all four of these matches were punctuated with ifs and buts.
There’s no doubting that Spurs were abject at Brentford in their opening Premier League fixture, and while their midweek Carabao Cup win did allay the worst of Spurs fans’ early-season nerves, it did come with a team that won’t be expected to be the same for this match and against one of the most modest oppositions they’ll face all season.
Newcastle, meanwhile, were better than most expected against Liverpool, but they couldn’t hold on for all three points in that match and their midweek Carabao Cup performance saw them make hard work of a match which, it might be argued, should have been a routine win.
In view of this, the only sensible thing to do is to predict a draw and, given that this is a match-up which often delivers a few goals, 2-2 sounds like a realistic outcome for a fixture which could head in just about any direction.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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