Newcastle United avoided another pre-season defeat, hanging on to a 1-1 draw against Tottenham Hotspur at the Korean National Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
In what was Son Heung-min's last game for Tottenham, the game became almost like a testimonial to the South Korean hero, especially when you consider the scenes following his withdrawal in the second half. Son hugged every single Spurs player and staff member with the backdrop of a raucous ovation from the Korean support. It was a great moment for one of the sport's nicest people.
As for the game itself, Newcastle started the game really slowly and Spurs took full advantage, scoring after just four minutes through Brennan Johnson.
Red flags were raised very early on when a Nick Pope clearance spooned off his trotter and went out for a corner in a move that almost defied physics. Fortunately, the first-choice stopper more than made up for that error later on with a fine save when one-on-one with Mathys Tel.
Harvey Barnes came to Newcastle's rescue
The Magpies grew into the game and started to look the bigger threat, eventually grabbing the goal they deserved for their domination on 38 minutes.
Harvey Barnes picked up the ball on the left flank, cut inside and fired a low, hard shot into the corner at the near post. A typical Harvey Barnes goal, if ever there was one.
The game lost a lot of momentum in the second half as both managers made a raft of changes, taking all of the urgency out of the game.
There were. however, several incidents throughout the game would have onlookers questioning the 'friendly' nature of the game, with Bruno Guimaraes and Cristian Romero almost coming to blows, and there were a few other full-blooded moments. Joelinton, of course, threw his weight around at times to add to the feistiness of the game.th
Newcastle really need that striker situation sorted
One thing that became screamingly apparent was how much Newcastle badly need a striker. After 12 attempts at goal and only two on target, the outlook is certainly not great.
Hopefully, though, we're moving towards a conclusion on the striker front, and with a bit of luck, it will be resolved this week ahead of the Sela weekender, but at least we hope it's resolved before the season opener.
Newcastle will return home tomorrow, and that means Eddie Howe will soon sit down with Alexander Isak, and we'll start to get a clearer picture of what is going on, hopefully.