Spurs 5 - 0 SwanseaHarry Kane at the double as five-star Tottenham saunter past Swansea
Home team scorersHarry Kane 39 Pen
Heung-Min Son 45 +0:04
Harry Kane 49
Christian Eriksen 70
Christian Eriksen 90 +1:03
The comedian, Michael McIntyre, was in attendance and the White Hart Lane PA announcer referred to the Swansea City substitute Fernando Llorente as Fernando Morientes on more than one occasion. But for the biggest laugh of the afternoon, nobody needed look any further than the referee, Jon Moss, whose decision to award Dele Alli a penalty on 39 minutes for what was a swan dive broke Swansea City.
Alli seemed to tumble in slow motion, under Kyle Naughton’s non-challenge, and when Moss blew for the penalty, it was the catalyst for Tottenham Hotspur to surge to a much-needed win. Harry Kane scored from the spot and he would get another one after the interval to take his tally to seven in six appearances for the club.
Son Heung-min scored a beauty on 45 minutes, while Christian Eriksen helped himself to two in the second half and Mauricio Pochettino could exhale after a trying sequence. His team had entered this game with only one win in 10 matches in all competitions.
For Bob Bradley and Swansea, the heat remains on. The penalty was a cruel cut but the manner in which they folded afterwards boded badly for the battles ahead. They had hardly done much in a proactive sense before the award and, yet again, the brittleness of their defence was a worry.
Tottenham had pressed onto the front foot from the first whistle and they enjoyed plenty of possession and the territorial advantage before the penalty. There were flickers in front of goal, with Kane directing a header towards the top corner from Kyle Walker’s cross and Walker himself banging a shot at the same portion of the goal. On both occasions, Lukasz Fabianski tipped behind for a corner.
The game turned on the penalty and no matter how many times you watched the replay, it was impossible to conclude that Alli had been sent tumbling to ground by Naughton. The Swansea full-back appeared to see Alli stealing in on his blind-side inside the area and pull out of the challenge. The Tottenham midfielder was already going down when he initiated what little contact there might have been and, quite simply, Moss bought it.
Kane converted with the minimum of fuss and Swansea were left to nurse a sense of injustice. Fabianski was booked for his protests while the coaches, Paul Williams and Alan Curtis, complained to Moss as the teams left the field at half time.
By then, Tottenham were two to the good, and what an excellent goal it was from Son. After Eriksen had seen an effort blocked, the ball looped over towards Son who, on the half-turn, leapt into an acrobatic side-on shot that flew high past Fabianski at this near post.
Bradley had begun with three in midfield, with the pace of Modou Barrow and Jefferson Montero on the flanks. It was the first time this season that both of the wingers had started in the same team and the manager had hoped that they would ask questions of the Tottenham full-backs, Walker and Danny Rose. They did not.
It was Tottenham who forced the issue, with Walker, in particular, seeing a lot of the ball in the buildup to moves, after he had recovered from the shock of being caught in the head with a ridiculously high boot from Neil Taylor in the early running. It drew blood while Walker also needed a strapping to his hand, having raised it to fend off the blow. Remarkably, Moss did not book Taylor.
Pochettino has returned to his 4-2-3-1 formation, after flirtations with other approaches of late and it has put Mousa Dembélé into his favoured deeper-lying midfield role, where he can see the pitch in front of him. The manager started with Eriksen on the right of midfield, and his combinations with Walker were a pleasing feature. Dembélé also had some nice moments.
Bradley introduced Morientes, sorry, Llorente, at half time and he would also send on Borja Baston and Wayne Routledge in a further attempt to inject attacking spark. Nothing worked for him. Swansea were bankrupt in a creative sense and Hugo Lloris was a virtual spectator in the Tottenham goal.
Swansea were cooked when Alli fed Son on the break and, when he was held up by Taylor, Kane arrived to sweep low past Fabianski. Tottenham came to look as though they could score with every forward thrust, so dishevelled were Swansea, and Eriksen twisted the knife. He bundled in his first goal after Alli’s shot had looped up off Fabianski and his second was a neat touch and low finish from substitute Moussa Sissoko’s pass.
Guardian