Newcastle, though, will rue the manner of that second Tottenham equaliser.

On a night when Spurs had not exactly peppered the Newcastle goal, the hosts kindly gifted their visitors their second shot on target in the dying minutes.

Aaron Ramsdale, who is filling in for injured goalkeeper Nick Pope, elected to punch substitute Mathys Tel’s corner but it did not clear the box and the ball looped up invitingly inside the area.

What happened next felt like it was occurring in slow motion.

Romero, who had earlier sounded a warning in front of goal, was given the time and space to line up his overhead kick as no Newcastle player attacked the ball.

There was still an opportunity for someone to keep it out, but the ball bobbled past a sea of black and white shirts and crept past Ramsdale, who was slow to react.

St James’ was stunned.

It brought back memories of Rio Ngumoha’s 100th-minute winner for Liverpool back in August and Arsenal defender Gabriel’s 96th-minute knockout blow in September.

“You can look back to each moment and identify the mistake or a part of the team not doing its job,” Howe said. “The job for us is to coach the team to be better in those situations and that’s what we will endeavor to do.

“But sometimes it becomes psychological, sometimes it becomes a fear of conceding and you do concede. There’s so much that goes into it, but we have got to find ways when we are in front to be better and usually our best form of defence is to attack and I encourage us to do that all the time.

“Sometimes you have to accept that you’re not in that position in the game to do it, and you just have to see it out and defend better. Today was one of those moments where we didn’t do it.”