-
Hugo Lloris breaks silence after ’embarrassing’ Tottenham performance against Newcastle.
Tottenham Hotspur captain and troubled goalkeeper Hugo Lloris provided a scathing assessment of his team’s 6-1 thrashing of Newcastle United on Sunday afternoon.
In a dreadful opening 21 minutes, Lloris only managed one save for Tottenham as they quickly slid to a 5-0 deficit at St James’ Park. Joelinton’s attempt from the top of the box may have been blocked by Lloris’ lone save, but Jacob Murphy cheerfully knocked in the rebound to let the floodgates open.
Joelinton scored first, beating Lloris, and Murphy added a third goal from distance as the clock approached the ninth minute.
Lloris failed to stop Alexander Isak twice in quick succession as Cristian Stellini rearranged back four haemorrhaged opportunities.
The fourth goal for Newcastle was scored by the Sweden international, who weaved between the gaping holes in Tottenham’s defence. Isak easily got past Tottenham’s helpless goalkeeper moments later from a tight angle without seeing much resistance.
Lloris replaced Fraser Forster at halftime, leaving the field after Newcastle scored their sixth goal.
“It’s very embarrassing,” Lloris sheepishly admitted when speaking to Sky Sports after the match. “We should apologise to the fans. We didn’t show a good face and we could not match the performance of the Newcastle players. We were late in all aspects of the game and we completely missed the first part of the game. The second half is a different story but it’s really painful.”
When the result was framed as a consequence of Stellini’s switch from a back three to a back four, Lloris was not impressed with that explanation. “It is not even about tactics, we just could not fight and we were late,” he stressed. “I think Newcastle just had a great performance, they were very aggressive and offensive everywhere they had the ball.
“It is difficult right now to assess the performances but there was a lack of pride,” Lloris continued. “You can get punched once or twice, but it was like we could not even react or bounce back. Newcastle deserve a lot of credit for starting the game at 100 miles per hour. They knew exactly what to do.”
Tottenham trail third-placed Newcastle by six points with just six games of the season to play. Fourth-placed Manchester United were not involved in league action this weekend while contesting the FA Cup semi-finals but enjoy the same cushion above Spurs despite boasting two games in hand on the north Londoners.