Spurs 1 - 0 SunderlandHarry Kane capitalises on Tottenham’s pressure to see off Sunderland
Home team scorersHarry Kane 59
Tottenham Hotspur nudged up to third in the Premier League with a tight, hard-fought, somehow oddly inevitable 1-0 defeat of Sunderland. Harry Kane scored the only goal but was taken off on a stretcher just before the end with a nasty twist of the ankle, a moment that may prove more significant than three points gathered against muscular but cautious opponents who had only two shots on target all game.
David Moyes’s team came to White Hart Lane to defend and did so well enough for 58 minutes until a slip from Papy Djilobodji gave the ball to Kane in front of goal. He had time to take a touch and side-foot into the corner to break a White Hart Lane goal-blank stretching back to March.
Mauricio Pochettino was happy with the win after a gruelling week, less so with the injury to a player who is so vital to the rhythms of his team. “It’s for this that we signed Vincent [Janssen] who has been doing very well. He’s a striker who can give us other options,” Pochettino said. But the fact is Spurs have been slightly winging it when it comes to backup for their main man. Currently no other senior striker at the club has actually scored for the first team. Eric Dier and Mousa Dembélé also picked up slight knocks but both should be fit for the trip to Middlesbrough on Saturday.
For Sunderland this was a fourth defeat in five that leaves them listing along joint‑bottom of the table and Moyes still looking – although not, on this evidence, with that much urgency – for his first victory. Moyes had suggested that there might be some intangible mental weakness behind his team’s poor start, even an indefinable “something” that goes beyond rational explanation: a bad vibe, a hex, a shadow.
Defending properly, as Sunderland did here for the opening 45 minutes, might be one way of shifting that mysterious cloud. Offering a little more adventure might be another. Not least against opponents who did seem vulnerable when Sunderland committed Adnan Januzaj and Steven Pienaar forward in support of the rather lonesome Jermain Defoe, who had a total of 13 touches all game. Sunderland might have even gone to half-time 1-0 up had Pienaar been able to beat Kyle Walker on the line – as he really should – after good work from Januzaj on the break.
It was a rare attack from the blancmange-coloured shirts on a grey north London afternoon, with the piles of displaced earth and the huge steel armature of the new stadium now rising above the open corner at one end. Spurs were dominant from the start, pressing down the flanks but finding no way past the athletic and assertive Jordan Pickford.
Pochettino has spoken of the need to find other gears, other ways of playing and here he changed the texture of his midfield, bringing in Dembélé, Moussa Sissoko and Victor Wanyama, with Dier dropping into the back four and Jan Vertonghen shifting to left-back. Dembélé in particular has been missed during his ban; a midfielder with muscle as well as craft, able to pass, dribble and keep the ball.
Spurs started with purpose, Son Heung-min – who played well throughout – flashing the ball across the face of goal after a driving run. Jason Denayer was a late inclusion in Sunderand’s XI after Patrick van Aanholt withdrew for unspecified reasons. Understandably, he struggled for a while against Son on his Premier League debut. Kane drew a smart near-post block from Pickford after Son’s low cross. Later Son cut inside and spanked a shot on to the foot of the post.
Sunderland rarely pushed across halfway but they began to offer a little space after half-time as Dele Alli moved nicely across the front line. It was Alli’s skip across the box that made space for Dembélé to play a lovely little pass to Son, whose shot billowed the side netting. And moments later Sunderland finally blinked. Walker swung a high cross in from the right, Alli nodded down and Djilobodji made a horrible attempt to control on his chest, deflecting the ball to Kane.
With the game drifting away Moyes abandoned the deep-lying trench defence, with Duncan Watmore providing some gambolling menace down the right. Januzaj was sent off for a second yellow in the 89th minute. Spurs might have scored again, but could not find the final pass. Janssen’s wild blast over the bar in stoppage time was fitting end to a slightly fretful match.
Guardian