Spurs lose again at Newcastle but this time only by a one-goal margin with Isak netting winner

By Alessandro Schiavone at St James' Park

Newcastle 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur

Goals: Barnes (N), Johnson (T), Isak (N)

Tottenham Hotspur can take heart in the fact that they avoided a battering on the cursed St James' Park turf.

In recent seasons the north Londoners were on the end of humiliating 6-1 and 4-0 maulings.

But despite a vast improvement on their last two visits, Ange Postecoglou's men all the same slipped to a 2-1 defeat today after Brennan Johnson's goal had temporarily raised their hopes.

Alexander Isak's 78th-minute winner did the job for Toon who perhaps did not deserve the win today, making hard work of it.

Harvey Barnes's flicked finish after getting on the end of Lloyd Kelly's delivery down the left put the hosts into a 1-0 lead on 37 minutes.

Before that, Senegalese midfielder Pape Matar Sarr saw two long-rangers saved by Nick Pope after the visitors had stubbornly withstood Newcastle's early assault. In 2023 they were already 5-0 down 20 minutes in, which shows that their approach to tricky games has changed for the better.

Isak had hit the bar from a shot-cross after dispossessing Son Heung-Min while Barnes' attempt to find a breakthrough also hit a snag, with his thunderbolt missing the target.

The 52,211 supporters then witnessed how Radu Dragusin raced back after a Christian Romero cock-up to block Isak's shot just after the restart. The Romania international looks a different beast this term and played arguably the best game in a Spurs shirt today.

New signing Wilson Odobert was presented with a golden chance at the far-post from a deflected cross but failed to connect properly before Pedro Porro's deflected shot only made the crossbar.

But substitute Brennan Johnson found a way to send the traveling supporters into raptures when he was at the right place at the right time to pounce on Pope poorly parrying James Maddison's harmless strike into his path.

All of a sudden Newcastle were put under presssure and unbalanced with Porro hitting the bar.

Boosted by an excellent Guglielmo Vicario stop, the game was up for grabs for Tottenham.

But Pope showed resilience and mental strength when his spectacular flying kept out potentially Maddison's winner. The ex-Leicester star was booed throughout.

But Isak, teed up by Murphy after a quick transiton, gave Toon their third home hurrah on the bounce against Romero and company.

And if this was by many regarded as a free hit before kick-off, Tottenham came very close to hitting the jackpot with three unlikely points.