Mauricio's verdict on Newcastle

Not surprisingly, Mauricio Pochettino cut a despondent figure after our 1-0 loss at home to Newcastle on Sunday.

Joelinton scored the only goal of the game on 27 minutes to consign us to our first defeat of the 2019/20 Premier League campaign.

We dominated throughout – 79 per cent possession – but it’s fair to say we didn’t test Newcastle goalkeeper Martin Dubravka enough. He saved well from the returning Heung-Min Son in the first half, Lucas Moura twice missed the target and Harry Kane had claims for a penalty turned away after a VAR review.

On reflection, Mauricio said we weren’t aggressive enough on the day. “We need to be better and we should do better,” he stated. “In this type of game when you have the possession and dominate, you cannot concede this type of goal and then you are going to be close to the win.

“But when you concede you provide the belief to the opponent and then it’s difficult because the Premier League is very tough.

“We arrived in the last third dominating the ball but from there we needed more from our individual talent to break down their organisation. Today, we tried, collectively I think we had 37 crosses, but we didn’t connect. It’s difficult. We need to be more aggressive and we need to keep going.

“That is football. The opponent had a lot of criticism after Norwich, but they came here and they were more aggressive than us, that is true. Not better, but more aggressive, for sure.”

Mauricio has another clear week to work with the squad before a huge game next weekend – Arsenal at the Emirates on Sunday (4.30pm). “We need to be strong, positive. We have one week to work and for sure, we’ll arrive in a good way.”