Irish Daily Mirror

NO MORE MR RICE GUY

Son’s at the centre of another supershow as Spurs eye the last eight

- BY JOHN CROSS Chief Football Writer @johncrossm­irror

Ireland stunned as Declan declares for England

THE hallmark of Tottenham’s season will be their fearless spirit.

You write this team off at your peril because if they started this tie as underdogs then they emerged from their most impressive win this season as red-hot favourites.

Tottenham were magnificen­t, their swashbuckl­ing secondhalf performanc­e completely overwhelme­d Borussia Dortmund and they are surely on course for the quarter-finals. Once again, it was Heung-min Son who popped up as the hero to score the opening goal to completely change the momentum at Wembley.

By the time Jan Vertonghen and Fernando Llorente scored late goals, there was only ever going to be one winner.

And no-one should underestim­ate the scale of Tottenham’s achievemen­t as they were discipline­d, strong and determined to overcome the Bundesliga leaders.

They were irresistib­le after the break and Son has made himself indispensa­ble – he should be on the shortlist for Player of the Year nomination­s.

Incredibly, he has scored nine goals in 10 games against Borussia Dortmund for former clubs Hamburg, Bayer Leverkusen and now Tottenham.

But this was also about Son delivering when Tottenham needed him most because they had been second-best against Dortmund, given the runaround by jet-heeled England starlet Jadon Sancho in the first half. However, from the moment Son scored two minutes after the restart, the momentum shifted in Tottenham’s favour on the night and over the course of the tie. They will go to Germany in three weeks’ time believing they can reach the last eight which is no small feat when you consider what they have been up against this season.

This Champions League campaign had looked over before it had barely begun in the Group stage as they lost two and drew the other of their opening three games.

They could have given up the ghost in the Premier League title race after Harry Kane and Dele Alli were ruled out through injury but both

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 ??  ?? THREE AND EASY DOES IT Son opened the scoring before Vertonghen and Llorente sealed the Wembley rout
THREE AND EASY DOES IT Son opened the scoring before Vertonghen and Llorente sealed the Wembley rout

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