NEWCASTLE UNITED 5 TOTTENHAM 1

TOO LITTLE, too late. Eight days after it was imperative Newcastle United’s players produced their best display of the season at Villa Park, they duly delivered in a game that didn’t matter. Tottenham will be in the Champions League next season – the Magpies will be in the Championship. None of this changes a thing.

In fact, on a surreal afternoon that saw Newcastle’s supporters serenading a side that have finished the season in 18th position, the quality of the home side’s display merely reinforced the impression of a group of players that have not been giving their all this season.

If they can play like this against a Spurs side who were challenging for the title less than a fortnight ago, why on earth have they been so poor for the majority of a campaign that has still ended in embarrassment?

It is no use performing when the pressure is off, only to fold like a pack of cards in the games that really matter. The quality level within this Newcastle squad has never really been an issue, but an absence of character, resolve and desire has been a debilitating problem throughout the last nine months. It feels like an even more acute failing now.

The desire of the home crowd to persuade Rafael Benitez to remain as Newcastle manager helped explain the party atmosphere that accompanied the club’s second relegation in the space of seven years, but it still felt like too many players were getting off far too lightly, such has been the extent of their failings. They even managed a laugh and a joke in the centre-circle after the final whistle, with thousands of supporters remaining behind to applaud them off the field.

Yet all over the pitch, there were glimpses of what might have been, and jarring reminders of just how badly so many key players have underperformed this season. On days like this, Newcastle’s players look more than capable of holding their own in the top tier. The problem, of course, is that such days have been few and far between over the course of the last nine months.

Georginio Wijnaldum, who scored two goals to take his tally for the season to 11, morphed back into the impishly creative midfielder who had threatened to take the Premier League by storm in the first three months of his Newcastle career, most notably of course when he scored four goals in October’s rout of Norwich.

Moussa Sissoko, who won a penalty and set up two more of Newcastle’s goals, was back to being the rampaging attacking force that has sporadically lit up St James’ Park during his three-and-a-half years in the North-East, rather than the nonentity that has spent most of the current campaign skulking in the shadows.

Aleksandar Mitrovic lost his head spectacularly when he was rightly dismissed for a dreadful challenge on Kyle Walker, but prior to that, the Serbian had rediscovered the power and purpose that characterised his earliest displays in a Newcastle shirt, while Cheick Tiote provided glimpses of the form that once saw him linked with a possible move to Chelsea.

How many of those players will still be around when the Championship season begins at the start of August, or perhaps more pertinently, when the summer transfer window closes a month later?

Of yesterday’s starting line-up, it is easy to imagine Karl Darlow kicking things off in the second tier, particularly as Rob Elliot is unlikely to regain his fitness until well into the autumn. Paul Dummett and Jack Colback can also expect to be involved, perhaps along with Chancel Mbemba if no one fancies picking up his wages.

But Tiote, Wijnaldum, Sissoko and Mitrovic, not to mention Andros Townsend? It’s exceptionally unlikely that any of that quintet will be spending much time in the Championship, and on the evidence of the performance and attitude of the first four over the whole of the season, that’s probably no bad thing.

Steven Taylor is another player who will be moving on this summer, although in the case of the 30-year-old centre-half, his departure will be because his contract is expiring rather than due to interest from elsewhere.

Yesterday’s appearance, which came about largely because of Jamaal Lascelles’ unavailability because of illness, was Taylor’s 268th in a Newcastle shirt. He was on the field when the Magpies were relegated at Villa Park in 2009, and the fact he has been a permanent presence ever since is a damning indictment of the chronic recruitment failures that have resulted in a second demotion in the space of seven years. Newcastle have spent money in that period, but some age-old issues, particularly in defence, have consistently been ignored.

They weren’t a problem yesterday, although that was as much down to Tottenham’s unexpected indifference as to anything positive from a black-and-white perspective.

Spurs went into the game needing to claim a point to guarantee finishing above their North London rivals, Arsenal, in second position. They have qualified for the Champions League regardless, but for the season to be deemed an unqualified success, holding on to the runners-up spot was surely essential. Clearly, however, their players thought otherwise.

Harry Kane and Eric Dier appeared to have their minds on this summer’s European Championships such was their unwillingness to get involved in anything even resembling a tackle, while the rest of the visiting side also remained stuck in first gear. As a result, Newcastle won at a canter.

The hosts had already threatened through Mitrovic and Townsend when they broke the deadlock in the 19th minute courtesy of the kind of well-worked team goal that has been glimpsed all too rarely this term.

Toby Alderweireld nodded Daryl Janmaat’s cross to Sissoko, he squared to Mitrovic, and when the striker laid the ball into Wijnaldum’s path, the Dutchman stroked an excellent first-time finish beyond Hugo Lloris.

Newcastle added a second six minutes before the break, with Mitrovic rising above Walker to head home Sissoko’s cross, and while Spurs clawed a goal back when Erik Lamela hammered past Karl Darlow at his near post on the hour mark, the visitors rarely looked like waking from their stupor.

Their prospects of a comeback should have been enhanced by Mitrovic’s 67th-minute dismissal, with the striker deservedly seeing red for a dreadful challenge that saw him thud his studs into Walker’s legs. Instead, Newcastle were even better with ten men as they repeatedly carved Spurs apart on the counter-attack.

Wijnaldum converted from the penalty spot after Lamela was penalised for clipping Sissoko’s heels – the Newcastle midfielder made the most of some minimal contact – and Newcastle claimed a fourth when substitute Rolando Aarons drove home Daryl Janmaat’s cross at the back post.

Sixty seconds later, and the Magpies made it five when Aarons broke from his own half to feed an overlapping Janmaat, who drilled past Lloris. The rout, like Newcastle’s season of shame, was complete.