Habib Beye Watch – Spurs

Three excellent points were wrapped up nicely after some last minute Christmas shopping courtesy of Damian Duff and Mark Viduka. Spurs may have felt they deserved a point in this one but unfortunately for them Santa has Harry on the naughty list and has left him a nice lump of coal on to celebrate Christmas with.

Habib Beye didn’t want to leave the pitch at the end of the game as he stayed out alone to applaud the excellent St James’ Park crowd after the final whistle, finally making his way off the field to a rousing chorus of “THIS” Habib Beye tune.

In terms of the match itself, the bad news was Oba Martins was feeling his groin injury and was replaced in the starting line up by Shola Ameobi. Ameobi had a stinker on the day and was injured just before the half hour mark, unfortunately, not before his poor play directly led to Modric’s equalising goal. Before that there had been a couple of half chances at best before Givens excellent pass to N’Zogbia led to Newcastle’s first goal. Spurs were defending high and Charlie made an early run which was spotted by Given who launched a long ball down field over the Spurs defenders heads. N’Zogbia always had the edge in terms of pace as the Spurs defenders panicked when running towards goal. As he made his way through he looked to be tripped by the defender and as this Beyewatch reporter protested wildly for a penalty he some how regained his balance and the ball and slotted it into the net.

The second half was more subdued at first with Spurs seemingly happy with the point while Newcastle looked to give nothing away, although another two points dropped at home would have been a worry for the home crowd. Lennon was lively down their right, working Enrique very hard whilst former Toon target Modric was busy throughout the game too but still lacks a physical aspect to his game. For us N’Zogbia was the danger man as Jonas had a quiet day buy his standards. And it was N’Zogbia who made a run down the left to cross low to the near post where Viduka cleverly laid it to Owen eight yards out whose left footed effort missed the target with the goal at his mercy.

As the minutes ticked down, Kinnear’s introduction of Duff looked to be too little too late with only 3 minutes of normal time remaining, however two minutes later it was Duff who linked up well with fellow sub Viduka to tuck away the winner and send the crowd home happy for Christmas. Viduka’s back heeled pass every bit as good as the deft finish from Duff.

Merry Christmas from the Beyewatch team.