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Carling Cup holders Tottenham edged into the last 16 to give their season a timely boost while plunging managerless Newcastle’s to a dismal new low.

In front of a 20,577 crowd at St James’ Park, both teams showed their fragile confidence in a poor first-half.

Spurs did not offer much, but they did manage to take a 62nd-minute lead when unmarked Roman Pavlyuchenko headed in.

Four minutes later, Jamie O’Hara capitalised on a Newcastle error while Michael Owen scored in vain late on.

Spurs and Newcastle, lying bottom and second-bottom of the Premier League table respectively, both stressed the importance of the game in terms of the impact it could have in kick-starting their season.