A big victory - Sir Bobby

Last updated : 14 December 2003 By FootyMad

Sir Bobby

"I had a call from Derek Wright mid-morning to say he'd been up all night sweating and had a temperature. He was feeling a little bit better but he was feeling a bit washed-out.

"We checked him out and decided what we would do to see how he felt in the warm-up. We'd soon find out whether his body strength was good and he had enough strength in his legs as well.

"I went out during the warm-up to see how he was and he said he'd like to try. I thought we'd take a risk - we could always have taken him off after half an hour.

"But he played longer than I thought he was capable of doing. The second goal gave him such an injection, gave him such an adrenalin rush, he was able to go a little bit longer.

"It was a great brace of goals for a fine player who's in good form.

"Laurent scored two and made two. They were two good corners and Alan got on the end of both of them, and we find ourselves in winning form with a big victory and have picked up three points and gone up to fifth, so it's been a really good day for us.

"Some of the other results have gone quite well for us as well, but you have to help yourself and that's what we've done today.

"It (the first goal) changed the game, to be honest. After half an hour, I was very impressed with Tottenham. They looked a good side and they matched us in everything.

"I turned round to John Carver and said 'If we win this game 1-0, we'll be quite pleased about that'.

"With Laurent's goal, we were 1-0 up at half-time and obviously 10 minutes into the second half, another stunning strike and we were well on our way."


David Pleat

"At half-time, you could say that, in a strange way, our passing dictated the tempo of the first half.

"Robert's wonderful goal put us slightly on the back foot, we were dealing with a couple of injuries at half-time, but in truth, Newcastle raised the tempo dramatically and we couldn't stay with the game.

"When you raise the tempo dramatically like that and score in that spell when you're playing so well, I'm afraid that's curtains. The rest of the game becomes almost null and void.

"We've been well smacked, we've got to put our hand up to two great Robert goals and I've also got to question some of our defending.

"But fortunately in football, there's another game not too far away."