Hugo Lloris has slammed Tottenham’s performance against Newcastle in a brutally honest assessment, saying they were ‘a mess’ in Sunday’s 6-1 defeat. The veteran goalkeeper was withdrawn due to an injury after shipping five goals in 21 minutes at St James’ Park. Joelinton opened the scoring after just two minutes, before Jacob Murphy and Alexander Isak scored quick-fire braces. Harry Kane managed to pull a goal back with a fine individual effort, not even mustering a smile as the ball hit the back of the net, while substitute Callum Wilson added a sixth for the hosts shortly after the hour-mark.
Skipper Lloris fronted up after the match, taking on media duties, and felt he and his team-mates were second best from the first minute and were devoid of aggressiveness, apologising to fans for the lack of fight. Speaking to Sky Sports, the Frenchman said: ‘It’s very embarrassing. The first thing is that we should apologise to the fans who travelled. We were late in all the aspects of the game and we completely missed the first part of the game. Obviously the second half is another story, but it’s really painful today. It’s not even about talking of tactics, it’s just we couldn’t fight. We were late [second best] in all the aspects of the game, as I said, and I think Newcastle had a great performance. They were very aggressive, they were very offensive every time they got the ball, they were looking forward. It’s difficult right now to assess and analyse the performance but the first thing is that there was probably a lack of pride. To concede five goals in 20 minutes. You can get punched once, twice, you can concede, but on the pitch it was something strange. It was like we could not even react, we could not even bounce back into the game, into the performance.
On the injury that forced him to be subbed off, he added: ‘It doesn’t sound good. I think it’s a muscle injury, around the hip. I felt something on a long kick and it doesn’t sound good. But we will see tomorrow and in a few days after a scan.’ Lloris concluded by saying that Tottenham must bounce back from this defeat with two difficult games against Manchester United and Liverpool coming up.