Sky Sports pundit Charlie Nicholas has delivered his prediction for Newcastle United’s trip to Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday.
The Scot believes that Magpies striker Salomon Rondon will prove a ‘handful’ for the hosts, but he ultimately feels that Mauricio Pochettino’s side will prevail 2-1.
“It has been a good-news week for Newcastle with a record signing and this should be an interesting game,” he wrote on the Sky Sports website. “Newcastle will sit in with a counterattacking mentality, but Spurs will break them down and I would be surprised if Son does not score again.
“But also, Newcastle got stronger defensively [at home to Man City], they will sit in and make it awkward, Rondon is a handful, so they have a lot of hard work in front of them and again, it may take them [Spurs] until the last five minutes to win this.”
OPINION
Newcastle will certainly make it tough on Saturday. Tottenham will obviously go into the game as favourites, and rightly so, but the Magpies have proved a tough nut to crack for most of the big teams this season. Liverpool aside, none of them have really blown Rafael Benitez’s side away, and much of that is due to the Spaniard’s conservative tactics. He sets his team up to be hard to beat and occasionally, as they did against Manchester City, they nick a couple of goals and pull of a surprise result. Whether that happens here remains to be seen, of course. Spurs got a good win themselves in mid week and will be looking to build on that now. The onus will be on them to attack but, again, that might benefit the visitors. Benitez will be happy for his team to soak up pressure, knowing that they always have an out-ball in Rondon. The Venezuelan was magnificent against City and if Newcastle can get the ball up to him with regularity then they might have a chance.
