Local pride was at stake for Tottenham and Mauricio Pochettino will not forget the result in a hurry

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Quite a lot was made of Mauricio Pochettino meeting Sir Alex Ferguson for lunch in London last week. Tottenham Hotspur fans may have thought perch was on the menu. After all, Spurs were about to do to Arsenal what Ferguson’s Manchester United did to Liverpool.

However, there is that other Ferguson-Spurs story, the one Roy Keane told about a Ferguson team talk at Old Trafford. It probably consisted of more than three words but the three that stuck with Keane were: ‘Lads, it’s Tottenham.’

A club, a perception, was captured. Less is more, so they say. Except when it comes to the basics. Pochettino had the wit not to do a Roberto Martinez and say his team played well. They didn’t. But still, this was meant to be different, Pochettino is supposed to channel Sir Alex like few others.

Mauricio Pochettino rues rough day as Tottenham relinquished their hold on second spot in Premier League

Not on this evidence. At the moment of truth, Spurs have drawn two, lost two. Arsenal’s joke is that in a two-horse race, Tottenham have come third.

‘We don’t have enough quality to only try to play with the ball,’ Pochettino said. ‘We need to run.’

Yes, that would have been a start. Excuses can be found in the absences of Dele Alli and Mousa Dembele, and the gutting loss of the title that night at Chelsea. 

But there was something at stake for Spurs here: local pride. Local pride in the North East that could be seen in the Sunderland-funded plane flying over St James’ Park trailing: ‘Auf Wiedersehen Prem – Tyne To Go’.

Rafa Benitez applauds the St James' Park faithful as Newcastle signed off their season with a resounding win

In north London it will be heard in the merciless mockery that Arsenal fans dish out after a season in which it seems all they have done is moan. And still they are above Spurs.

St Totteringham’s Day they call it, the moment each year that Spurs can no longer finish above Arsenal. This woeful result makes it 21 seasons of consecutive St Totteringham’s Days. There was also club history to consider: not since 1963 had Spurs finished second in the league. That’s a big deal, or should be.

But now, rather than digesting the removal of that unwanted statistic, some at White Hart Lane might note that by ending on 70 points they are two shy of the total gained under Andre Villas-Boas three years ago.

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That did not protect AVB in the long term and while chairman Daniel Levy posed for selfies with fans close to the match’s end, neither he nor Pochettino will forget this in a hurry.

In the coming weeks there may well be a reassessment of the praise this Spurs season has received. From early on here this team, who were title contenders just a fortnight ago, laboured beside one already relegated, a mess of a club that is Newcastle United — who have beaten Spurs twice this season. Eric Dier strolled around, Erik Lamela did the same. Ryan Mason found black-and-white shirts so often he was replaced at half-time.

Christian Eriksen showed some of the energy that characterised their title push, but there was no collective impression from Spurs that coming second, finishing above Arsenal, mattered. The 3,000 travelling fans could have told them otherwise.

On a surreal afternoon, when Pochettino said he was consoled at the end by a manager of a side going down, after Aleksandar Mitrovic was sent off and the score was 2-1, Spurs managed to concede three more. They were outnumbered by 10 men.

‘Strange,’ Pochettino said once. ‘Shame,’ he added, thrice.

Aleksandar Mitrovic celebrates in trademark fashion after scoring Newcastle's second against Tottenham