SOCCER Newcastle 2 Tottenham 1: DAMIEN DUFF has spent most of his Newcastle United career looking miserable, so it is presumably testimony to Joe Kinnear's managerial skills that the winger was booked for over-celebrating yesterday.
Duff and Kinnear are well accustomed to seeing their names in sentences including the word "underwhelming" but the Tyneside tide might just be finally turning in the Dubliner's favour.
With the game drifting towards a draw, Newcastle's manager introduced Duff as an 87th-minute substitute and, less than three minutes later, was treated to the startling sight of him baring his chest and hurdling an advertising hoarding while wearing the most dazzling of smiles. A flash of fancy footwork, namely an adroit one-two with Mark Viduka featuring the cutest of backheels from the Australian, concluded with Duff rolling the ball beyond Heurelho Gomes to give Newcastle a slightly undeserved win.
Ledley King's doughty defending and Aaron Lennon's dashing wing play merited a greater Tottenham return but all Kinnear cared about was the chink of daylight opening up between his side and the bottom three.
"I have a good relationship with the players, I get the best out of them and that keeps you in a job," said Kinnear, whose improving team have gone six games unbeaten.
So far so uplifting but, this being Newcastle, the festive horizon has been clouded by newspaper headlines proclaiming "Black Cat Kinnear". The story alleged an agent purporting to represent Kinnear had approached Sunderland to inquire if they fancied the idea of installing him as Roy Keane's successor.
Kinnear has issued a strenuous, and angry, private denial and publicly treated the issue as a joke. "It's part of the never ending saga of life up here. I don't have an agent. I've never had an agent. I don't like agents and I don't pay agents."
It is therefore probably for the best that he leaves Newcastle's managing director to haggle with Michael Owen and his representatives over the club's offer of a contract extension to the striker.
Harry Redknapp's mood might have been brighter had David Bentley not looked so blatantly out of position on the left wing. Whereas Redknapp sees Middlesbrough's Stewart Downing as the "answer" to Tottenham's "black hole", Juande Ramos viewed Newcastle's Charles N'Zogbia as an alternative solution.
The left-winger reminded everyone why in the 11th minute. Latching on to Shay Given's huge punt upfield N'Zogbia was initially thwarted by Benoit Assou-Ekotto's partial interception but, having recovered his balance, and with Gomes coming off his line, he swivelled smartly before shooting, right-footed, into an unguarded net. Luka Modric equalised when he connected with Michael Dawson's through-pass and finished from the edge of the area.
It took until the 71st minute before an opening fell to Owen only for the striker to sky a 10-yard shot over the bar. With Duff around to demonstrate the art of shooting low such profligacy was quickly forgotten but Kinnear will not be forgiven should those stories of a Sunderland dalliance develop legs.
• Guardian Service
