McClaren wants more of the same from spirited Newcastle

Pochettino has fielded the youngest side in the division this season but he does not believe that their age has anything to do with the loss to Newcastle.

The £13m Serbian striker’s testing first season on Tyneside has seen him red-carded in August and then left out for two games after the home humiliation to Leicester.

“Sometimes we were playing our own game and not together”. “We had the chance to make it 2-0 or 3-0 and we didn’t”. When we needed to take one touch, we took three.

“That’s football, really. You play against good teams, and Leicester are a good team”. We start to give the opponents the belief. It was not a lack of energy.

An increasingly enterprising Newcastle levelled on 74 minutes as Mitrovic prodded home on the line after Lloris could only waft an unconvincing hand at Chancel Mbemba’s stopping header from Fabricio Coloccini’s knockdown.

He is said to be one of a number of targets for Man United ahead of the January transfer window, with the likes of Riyad Mahrez and Sadio Mane also rumoured to be on the club’s radar. They had not been beaten since opening day and created enough chances to win had it not been for the heroics of Elliot.

Yet Newcastle, who looked a demoralised crew out of ideas just a fortnight ago, somehow found the reserves of spirit and resolve to do what they had done gleefully in beating Liverpool 2-0 the previous week – take the wheels off a bandwagon. That was the problem, not the fault of an individual.

“The first person that is responsible for the defeat is me”.

Perez beat Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Lloris at his near post as the full-time whistle loomed after fellow substitute Aleksandar Mitrovic had cancelled out Eric Dier’s first-half headed opener for Tottenham.

Slowly rising club Newcastle United FC (4-8-4, 16 points) hopes to extend its rare winning run to three games against cellar-dwelling Aston Villa FC (1-12-3, 6 points) at the St. James’ Park on Saturday while the 2015-2016 Premier League season continues. We feel like this is an incident and the last couple of years that was a bit different.

Ayoze Perez (top) celebrates with teammates after scoring Newcastle United’s late victor at White Hart Lane. The gaffer spoke a lot with the players and we showed against Tottenham that we have got the ability to play against big teams and change the game. “We have been inconsistent. Its answered the critics we have had over the last four weeks and it was a great performance in the second half and a great result”, he said to BBC. “We’ve not turned the corner… we want to be (like) this every week and that only comes on a platform on a bed of hard work, attitude and commitment and discipline”.