Tottenham 1 Newcastle 1: Handball VARce strikes again as injury-time Callum Wilson penalty earns Newcastle point
CALLUM WILSON denied Spurs a deserved win with a controversial VAR penalty in stoppage time.
Newcastle’s new £20million striker slotted home from the spot with the Toon’s only shot on target after Eric Dier was harshly adjudged to have handled Andy Carroll’s header.
The Tottenham defender was in mid-air and had his back to Toon sub Carroll – and there was even a suspicion he was offside.
But ref Peter Bankes awarded the penalty after consulting with video official Lee Mason at Stockley Park, and then checking the pitchside monitor.
Spurs boss Jose Mourinho stormed down the tunnel in disgust, keeper Hugo Lloris, on conceding the penalty screamed ‘F**k off’ and goalkeeping coach Nuno Santos was sent off after protesting to Bankes at the final whistle.
It was tough on Tottenham as they totally dominated this clash.
Mourinho again left out Dele Alli but saw Giovani Lo Celso almost open the scoring when his third-minute free kick was spectacularly kept out by the left hand of Toon keeper Karl Darlow, who then reacted brilliantly to block Harry Kane’s follow-up shot before the visitors’ defence cleared.
Darlow showed his mettle again to thwart Kane’s close-range header from Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s deep cross into the box as Spurs dominated the opening exchanges.
And as Lo Celso pulled all the strings, the sound of Mourinho shouting ‘Bravo Gio, bravo’ echoed around the empty stadium.
Mourinho was applauding again in the 25th minute as Moura sneaked in behind the unsuspecting Matt Ritchie at the far post to toe poke Tottenham ahead from Kane’s cross.
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Son wasted a great chance to double the lead moments later when, through on goal, he tried to square to Moura instead of shooting. And Kane had a curling shot tipped wide by Darlow.
Son then fired one shot against the post and later another against the bar. While in-between Dier thumped the turf in fury after heading Son’s corner wide from four yards when he really ought to have scored.
Newcastle were hardly able to get out of their half before the break and yet they almost went in at the interval level after Jonjo Shelvey’s volley went wide by a whisker.
Mourinho replaced Son with Steven Bergwijn at half-time, but this did not loosen Tottenham’s grip on the game.
Darlow was soon called into action to keep out a Moura header and a weak shot from Lo Celso.
Kane then hit a shot on the turn straight at the Toon keeper before another Lo Celso had the stopper scrambling across his line to parry.
But just like the end of the first half, Spurs nearly gave away an equaliser as Ben Davies’ clearance hit his team-mate Hojbjerg sending the ball just wide of Lloris’ goal – before the late controversy.