Trust Richard Keys to have a bit of a ‘different’ view on Spurs v Newcastle United incident

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The Mag

·8 January 2025

Trust Richard Keys to have a bit of a ‘different’ view on Spurs v Newcastle United incident

Richard Keys has been talking about the Spurs v Newcastle United match.

A game that Eddie Howe’s side deservedly won.

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Falling behind to a fourth minute Solanke goal but brilliantly bouncing back to lead by half-time and saw the win out in the second half.

In the process, United making it six victories in a row.

Of course, following the Spurs v Newcastle United match, a lot of the talk has been about the ‘controversial incidents’ in the game.

A lot of this due to the embarrassing Ange Postecoglou comments after the match, the Aussie under pressure of losing his job and his side in dismal form, trying desperately to distract from those issues.

Anyway, Richard Keys with a bit of a ‘different’ take on things as usual, especially on one key moment in the Spurs v Newcastle match…

‘Two big calls caused a bit of a stir. At Tottenham – if Andy Madley penalises Joelinton for handball nobody is going to question the decision. I know – by the letter of the law – he was correct not to because Joelinton didn’t score and it wasn’t intentional handball – but Newcastle certainly did benefit. Gordon had the ball in the net literally moments later.

Refs have got to apply common sense as as well as the laws of the game.

The same can be argued about the incident at Brighton. Yes – Saliba catches Pedro and the law says pen, but if Saliba goes down with Pedro is it anymore than an accidental clash of heads? He should’ve done. Taylor wouldn’t have given a pen then.

By the letter of the law Taylor was correct. But come on. If it really was a pen then why didn’t Newcastle get one at Spurs when Kulusevski smashed into Gordon? That one was also an accident, but Gordon was left bloodied and bruised. Pen? Yes – if we apply the same criteria as Taylor did. But no if we apply common sense.’

On the Gordon goal, Richard Keys can’t have it both ways.

He accepts that the rules as they are meant the goal had to be given, yet he wants ‘common sense’ to have seen it disallowed.

Where is the common sense in ignoring the rules???

Dermot Gallagher (read HERE) perfectly explained why the referee and VAR got all of these ‘controversial incidents’ correct and why the Spurs boss was wrong.

Spurs 1 Newcastle 2 – Saturday 4 January 2025 12.30pm

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Gordon 6, Isak 38

Spurs:

Solanke 4

Possession was Newcastle 43% (54%) Spurs 57% (46%)

Total shots were Newcastle 14 (7) Spurs 13 (4)

Shots on target were Newcastle 4 (3) Spurs 4 (2)

Corners were Newcastle 10 (7) Spurs 9 (3)

Touches in the box Newcastle 27 (18) Spurs 26 (4)

Newcastle team v Spurs: