At 2-1 the home crowd would have been nervous at the prospect of throwing away an very early two goal advantage because Spurs were looking the more likely to score again.
The outcome might have been very different had Dimitar Berbatov, Tom Huddlestone or Danny Murphy executed slightly more precise passes towards the danger area but Spurs were guilty of trying to run the ball in at times with Murphy and Steed Malbranque most influential.
Mido replaced Didier Zokora after 66 minutes but gradually the home side gained back control as Spurs wasted opportunities in front of goal. Newcastle's midfield worked hard to ensure there was no way back for their opponents.
Martin Jol: "We were 2-0 down in seven minutes and that's exactly what we didn't want. We should have scored to make it 1-0 but 20 seconds later and the ball was in our net. That was typical for the afternoon.
"Newcastle played in a very aggressive manner, were clinical, but I don't feel they played much better than us.
"They showed us respect and we could have taken advantage of that and even though they scored the two early goals and then the third, we could have got a better result.
"We had four or five moments when we could have scored and I feel we were not clinical enough.
"Our play was a bit more accurate and our possession game was good, but we couldn't finish it off and that's what they did.
"Jermain went out for the warm-up, turned and tweaked his knee. We had to make a big decision not to play him because he said he could try, but he could have gone on and maybe had to come off after a couple of minutes, and we didn't want that."
Source: TottenhamHotspur.com