George Graham reckons the key to Tottenham's chances of a top-six Premiership place could be avoiding the red and yellow card plague that has surfaced alarmingly with the Football Association's latest disciplinary clampdown and the injury blight which debilitated the team last season.

And Graham, who takes his side to Newcastle this afternoon, is ready to leave the current rash of high-profile criticism of referees to other managers, admitting he gained an unwanted reputation for continually berating officials last term.

Graham was particularly incensed when referee Paul Alcock booked six of his players in the 2-1 league defeat at St James' in November, calling him ''the worst we've had'' and he also lambasted Alan Wiley for ''incompetent'' handling of a home defeat by Middlesbrough in April.

Graham escaped censure by the FA after publicly apologising to Wiley. Now he says: ''On reflection I can see I was becoming too well known for whinging about referees but, in fact, I've always believed that it is the people who instruct them who make life difficult for them.

''There is a balance to be drawn between commonsense refereeing and refereeing by the book but it is getting so much harder for officials to apply commonsense. There will always be mistakes made by referees as well as managers and players and, who knows, I might be involved in what looks a terrible decision next week or the week after.

''But I'm going to be determined to try to get on with it and let other managers do the complaining.''

Graham will name an unchanged starting line-up for the third consecutive match as Tottenham bid to maintain their unbeaten start to the season at St James' Park where they also crashed 6-1 in an FA Cup third round replay last season.

''That's history now and won't have any relevance to what happens tomorrow,'' said Graham, ''It will be our toughest test of the season so far but the players showed they could handle a very demanding game at Middlesbrough on Tuesday and I thought we deserved all three points instead of just one.'