Fabian Schär believed Newcastle United executed their game plan to perfection as the Magpies got off the mark in the Premier League with a workmanlike victory over Tottenham Hotspur.
A solitary strike from Joelinton proved enough to see off last season’s Champions League runners-up and earn a deserved win for Newcastle, who produced a much-improved display following their abject showing at Norwich City eight days ago.
The Magpies gave away little against Mauricio Pochettino’s side, who enjoyed plenty of possession throughout without ever really troubling Martin Dúbravka, save for a vicious strike from Son Heung-min in the first half.
Schär acknowledged that United could have few complaints about the criticism which came their way last week, but felt they produced the best possible response by winning on their first ever visit to Spurs’ new home.
“It’s unbelievable. To win away against Spurs is fantastic,” he told nufc.co.uk. “It was a great job from all the guys. I think it was very important to get that better feeling for the rest of the season. We know the first two games weren’t successful but now we have an important win away. It’s good for our confidence and I’m really happy.
“After the Norwich game we spoke a lot. The whole team knew it was a **** game from all of us. We cannot work like we did against Norwich, so we had to completely forget that game and looking forward we knew we had to do a lot more than we did last week. I think today we showed another face, and that’s (shown in) the result.
“I can understand if people were unhappy after the last game. We know it was a bad performance, but it’s still the start of the season. We have some new players, a new coach and everything maybe needs a little bit of time. But today we showed again that we have quality and the team can compete against the big sides.
“I think we made it hard for them – (they found it) hard to break us down. They had a few chances but not too many clear-cut chances, in my opinion. And I think in the second half, we could score the second one as well. We had two good counter attacks and the game plan was perfect, so yeah, it was a perfect day for us.”
Steve Bruce’s troops now turn their attention to the Carabao Cup, with Leicester City set to travel to St. James’ Park on Wednesday night, before hosting bottom-of-the-table Watford in the Premier League less than 72 hours later.
“I think we go much better into the week after a massive win here,” said Schär. “We know we have two different competitions this week – a cup game, which is always special, and then another home game, where we want to show the same quality as today. Hopefully we can continue like today.”