Newcastle are tough to beat when they play together, says Jack Colback
Monday 14 December 2015 14:26, UK
Jack Colback says Newcastle's shock win over Tottenham shows what they can achieve when the players work together.
The 2-1 win at White Hart Lane, live on Super Sunday, meant Steve McClaren's side registered back-to-back wins for the first time since November 2014 and saw them climb out of the Premier League relegation zone.
Eric Dier's header in the first half gave the home side the lead but goals from Newcastle substitutes Aleksandar Mitrovic and Ayoze Perez in the final 16 minutes completed a remarkable turnaround for a side which has been criticised this season for a lack of work rate and commitment.
"It shows that when we're all at it, when we're all focused and concentrating, when we're all together as a unit, we can be very difficult to beat," Colback told nufc.co.uk.
"We are a good team. We showed that against Liverpool and again [at Tottenham].
"We came here with a game plan to be compact and it looked to be working until we conceded. But we showed our character to come back and win."
Tottenham were the better side in the first-half but Newcastle emerged a different team after the interval, pressing harder and passing faster to assume control of the game.
"The first half was difficult. They have a really good set-up here where they work so hard to win the ball, give you no time or space and then when they have it they keep it very well," Colback said.
"At half-time we said that it's only 1-0 and that we were still very much in the game. Then in the second half the game opened up a bit, we were able to express ourselves a bit more and we got the two goals.
"We got the equaliser from the set-piece and a point would have been a great result here, we would have been happy with that, but you always hope that you will be able to nick it. And when the ball fell to Ayo [Perez] he was able to win the game for us - that was a massive bonus.
"It's a fantastic win. To come here, against a team who had only lost once all season was brilliant. That can really push us on. We've got back-to-back victories now and have to build on this."
