Tottenham Hotspur 5 Newcastle United 0

Feb 12 2012 by Mark Douglas, Sunday Sun

ALAN Pardew woke from his White Hart Lane nightmare to a top-flight table showing just a single point separates his side from the promised land of the Champions League.

For an hour and a half last night, it felt more like a chasm.

In a game billed as a litmus test of any top-four aspirations rattling around St James’ Park, Newcastle United were flattened by a Lillywhite juggernaut that has made this patch of North London a place teams fear to tread.

Outclassed and out-passed from the start last night, they departed with absolutely no complaints about their grisly fate after a collapse of epic proportions.

It has been an intoxicating campaign for the Geordies, but this was sobering stuff.

Make no mistake – it will be a while before we start speculating about a return to Europe’s top table after this Tottenham torment.

To be fair, at every turn during the week United staff have lined up to scotch top-four talk as over-excitable hyperbole.

At tea-time yesterday they could have clambered into that elite bracket, but it always felt like a challenge too far as Tottenham ruthlessly exposed a makeshift Newcastle midfield shorn of their two blue chip performers.

Sifting through the wreckage of this shocker, Pardew admitted he might have played it a bit safer if he had his time again.

But seriously, would midfield numbers have dulled the impact of Tottenham’s wing terrors? Would supplementing a midfield staffed by willing trier James Perch really had added the kind of X Factor required to check an irresistible Spurs?

Surely it would have made little difference.

No configuration of Newcastle’s available personnel were ever going to be able to live with their high-flying opponents on a day when Harry Redknapp’s England credentials were bolstered.

As bad as Newcastle were, Tottenham were better.

With Gareth Bale tearing into feeble Gabriel Obertan and harassed Danny Simpson, Toon looked terrified whenever they gave the ball away.

And thanks to the home side’s incessant pressing, that was far too often for the visitors to ever establish a foothold in the contest.

The gulf was terrifying.