As much as it frustrates that Newcastle seem to set themselves up to contain their opponents rather than playing their own game, sometimes it is appropriate to heed the threat posed by "better" teams, or at least ones who have specific threats in their ranks. It would be foolish to ignore the individual threats of the likes of Alexis Sanchez or Angel Di Maria, just as much as it is foolish to try and contain the likes of Hull or Leicester (both of which have happened in the past year). This weekend's victory over Spurs was very much a case of why Newcastle should consider being more adaptable in the face of teams that don't actually pose as much of a threat as those at the very top end of the league. On paper, Spurs should have brushed Newcastle aside quite easily - especially after the midweek form they showed against Asteras - but in a first half in which Newcastle attempted to contain them, and managed only to give them more than 70% of possession, they proved themselves strangely toothless. The only punishment came when Newcastle made mistakes, and there was very much a win to steal when the teams headed into half-time. Conventional wisdom would have said that Pardew would stick true to form and continue his containment game - he's persisted way too long before after all - but Pardew actually knows all about adaptability being key to beating Spurs. Back at the start of the 2012/13 season - fresh from finishing 5th - Pardew recognised the threat of Gareth Bale at half-time in that game, and realised that Cheick Tiote sitting deeper would nullify his threat as well as limiting the space Gulfi Sigurdsson was enjoying in front of the defence, which meant there was a lot of space ahead of Spurs' full-back. Rather than shackling Hatem Ben Arfa to his new rigid right midfield position, he changed to 4-3-3, dropped Tiote back a little and exploited the space in attack without compromising at the back. Too often Newcastle are scared to change their formation to exploit the weaknesses of the opposition, instead choosing only changes that limit opposition threat. If there's one thing that both of those key Spurs victories prove, it's that being brave enough to do the former can result in unlikely victories against even supposedly superior opposition. And if there's two things they proved, it's that Alan Pardew is capable of making managerial decisions at key moments, which makes his refusal to do so for the majority of the last year - and indeed the rest of the 2012/13 season - so incredibly frustrating.
