Aston Villa now find themselves eight points adrift from safety heading into the festive period whilst Newcastle can move up just one place should they win on Saturday. It is a squad game and sometimes, subs are the most important people.
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Harper admitted to being impressed with the Spaniard, 22, who netted the late victor at White Hart Lane last weekend.
The number 9 pulled up with a groin injury after half an hour of the game with Aston Villa and was forced out of the contest.
He said: “I must say from where we were to where we are finishing at Christmas, it’s a lot healthier and the key thing is the attitude of the players”.
“We want to win the game in the opening 20 minutes as we always say, we want to set out right”.
“We changed our mentality as normally when we are losing games we have lost our heads and now I think we stay in the game and we found a goal”, said Coloccini. We have to battle for that and when we are in a situation where we have nothing to lose, we start to play and that was the case this afternoon. “Every game is different and believe me, I have watched Villa in three or four games and they have got some very good players”. We know that and we see it every day.
“The players have just got to believe that they are good players, and that when they play together with that belief and that kind of spirit, intensity and focus, then we’re a good team”.
“To be well clear would be nice but we’re not away from it – we’re still fighting”. We try to make them better, that’s our job.
After all, if you were manager of Barcelona and left out Lionel Messi, would you then be hailed a genius if you brought him on and he won you the game? Tomorrow is an opportunity and a challenge for the players to say that is not going to happen. The second half was what it was.
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“Mitro and Ayoze are still working very hard during the week and that’s why I think we got the result – because they came on, showed their quality and scored”.
