3 Positives and 3 Negatives to take from Spurs 1 Newcastle 2

It ended Spurs 1 Newcastle 2.

Ahead of each game we ask one of our writers to come up with three positives and three negatives following the match.

An ‘interesting’ match in North London.

Plenty to talk about after this Premier League game.

As Newcastle United picked up their third Premier League away victory of the season.

On this occasion it is David Punton:

POSITIVES

Morale boosting

If ever there was a time to win a game, it was right now.

Such a huge tonic for the players and even more so for the manager.

Eddie Howe still has much hard work ahead of him – and there are bound to be bumps in the road.

But for a guy who has seen questions asked about his future at the club he got the perfect response at Spurs.

It needs to a springboard for more.

Proof tonight that Howe still has plenty in the tank. He got it right.

If he takes criticism when we lose, he has to get praise when we win.

Much better in midfield

Willock and Ramsey came to life.

That’s the standard we need to be seeing.

Jacob Ramsey capped it all off with a goal – finally repaying some of that massive fee we paid Villa to get him here. He’s undoubtedly a good player and maybe this is his moment to shine.

Same goes for Joe Willock and Anthony Elanga.

Domination

It was such a dominant first half from United.

How on earth we only went in at the break one goal to the good is beyond.

They need to bottle everything that was good about that 45 minutes and replicate it as much as they can.

In truth we dominated most of the game. It was well deserved.

NEGATIVES

Injury woes

Bruno limping at the end wasn’t a good sight.

It marred what was a great night, worries now about the United captain.

VAR farce

It was such a tight call on the Willock goal that never was.

Video technology has made things worse, not better.

The margin must have been the width of a postage stamp.

Makeshift number nines

It doesn’t say a great deal for Wissa and Woltemade that Anthony Gordon – a winger – was asked to play centre forward.

It remains a mystery as to why neither plays seems able to get going.

Eddie Howe was vindicated by dropping them both given that we won, but something isn’t right, when over £100m of striking prowess is left out.

Can one of them find some form soon? Surely they have to.