nice.
Spurs did what they had to do in closing the gap to Leicester back up after a comfortably easy victory over Bournemouth.
A minute in to Spurs home game against Bournemouth an old classic phrase was being bandied about social media in a somewhat welcome return. Too early
.
Walker for once wasn’t dithering and after eventually getting hold of Lloris’ ball, after bouncing it off his knee a couple of times, out he banged over the type of cross we keep being told he does but doesn’t really, straight onto Kane’s foot, he held off being manhandled and put the opener past Boruc, with 45 seconds on the clock.
Not “too early”. There’s no such thing as “too early” any more for Spurs. Whereas before it was a catalyst for disappointment now it’s a case of the earlier the better. An early goal allows Spurs to play the way they want.
Don’t score early and teams like Bournemouth, who lets not forget maybe in the bottom half of the league but have the third best form record in 2016 – behind top two in the league, Leicester and Spurs – can sit in and play out for either a point or sucker punch victory. And both are something Spurs have been susceptible to.
Teams can quite easily frustrate Spurs. But when a goal comes very early on the opposition have to come out and play and then Spurs are in their element in not actually letting them play. Pressing works better when they have to do something.
And so it was that early goal allowed Spurs to completely dominate, pretty much from start to finish, as the visitors didn’t trouble Hugo Lloris in goal with a single attempt on target.
Once Kane doubled his tally, after some nice build up, starting with Wimmer’s through ball to Alli and then yet another Alli assist, it was game over. Spurs were Dortmund to Bournemouth’s Spurs.
Kane now standing top of the goal scoring charts for the league season, which when you consider it took him seven games to get off the mark, is something. First Spurs player to score 20+ league goals in consecutive season since Big Chiv in ’71 and only the fifth English player to do so in the Premier League.
So just over a quarter of an hour in and it was done and dusted, a comfortable afternoon… but wait… no it actually was. Yes they had a little spell in the second half and the fullbacks did their usual doltish gifting the opposition routine thing but Hugo had nowt to do but catch a couple of crosses.
And then Eriksen really wrapped it up, Lamela through to Kane who has a bang and big bumbling Boruc can’t hang on and Eriksen is first on the scene to poke it in.
Could have been more, a few chances squandered none more so than Dele Alli’s miss which brought about memories of the classic clip of Brian Clough on the training ground… Oh you are a bloody disgrace…
There wasn’t even an hour on the clock, actually just over 50 minutes, it really was game over at this time it would have been very prudent for Spurs to pull a couple of fast ones.
With the international break coming up you know Roy is going to do his best to scuttle Spurs by thrashing Kane, Alli and possibly Dier over the two games coming up. Now if one or two of them had just hobbled off with a slight twinge that magically cleared up in just over a weeks time, well…
But no Harry played the full 90, Alli just missed the final 8 (plus added on) and Dier just the added on.
Luckily no injuries but Wimmer did stop a few hearts as he went down and stayed down, fortunately getting back up and carrying on. Now if only the remaining 7 games of the league season could be this simple…