A CURE FOUR THE HANGOVER
Spurs forget last season’s collapse, as Hughes is left seeing red in Stoke flop
STOP the press: the cure for a hangover has been discovered in north London.
After last season’s dramatic late collapse saw them go from title challengers to third place, behind Arsenal again, Mauricio Pochettino’s spritely Spurs appear to have woken up this term suffering no ill effects.
Following what appeared to be a harsh dismissal of Stoke manager Mark Hughes, the unbeaten visitors struck four unanswered goals in less than half an hour in a thrilling surge to victory.
Dele Alli broke his season’s duck, Harry Kane hit a first in 10 games for club and country and HeungMin Son struck a brace in arguably his best performance in a Tottenham shirt. Who needs Alka-Seltzer? Not a delighted Pochettino. ‘I think that after four games unbeaten you can see that the players are thinking about the new season, the new challenge,’ he said. ‘We forget the past. We worked hard to forget last season and focus on the present. After four games we are unbeaten and you can see that the team has recovered.’
In his programme notes, Hughes had bemoaned the performance of officials following a controversial penalty which saw his side go down 1-0 at Everton. His next lot should make for interesting reading.
With an even game scoreless, the Welshman was angered when Alli was not penalised for a strong challenge on Jon Walters and when Marko Arnautovic was booked seconds later for an apparent dive, he made the fatal mistake of leaving his technical area to protest.
‘I was upset and felt the assistant referee hadn’t flagged for a clear foul,’ Hughes said. ‘And the referee then thought it was the right decision to book Marko when he was just trying to take evasive action. Two decisions I thought should have gone our way, so I reacted in a forceful manner.’
That was all that was needed. ‘When you come out of your technical arena, it’s not allowed, sometimes you forget that,’ Hughes added. ‘Mr Moss (fourth official), bless him, decided that warranted a sending off, which, by the letter of the law it did, so I have to hold my hands up.’ On his way to the tunnel Hughes appeared to aim a volley at a waving away contingent. ‘I told them to shut up,’ he said. The winless Potters were smashing in the first half hour. Defender Glenn Whelan saw a rasping volley headed over the bar, Arnautovic had a strike ruled out for offside and Ryan Shawcross saw his header saved by Hugo Lloris.
However, after Hughes’s exit, Son calmly volleyed Spurs into the lead from Christian Eriksen’s cross to end the first of many incisive counter attacks.
Following the break there was a touch of comedy when Hughes, now in the director’s box, was given a walkie-talkie that appeared to be faulty. He had to resort to using his phone, and could have been searching for angry-face emojis moments later when Son doubled the visitors lead with a long-range beauty.
Alli then swept clinically past Stoke keeper Shay Given, who will not take fond memories from his 450th Premier League appearance. And with plenty of time remaining Kane ended his barren spell with a tap-in to spark an exodus.
‘It was very important for Harry to recover the feeling of scoring,’ Pochettino said. ‘Always the strikers are worried when they don’t score but now he feels happy, we feel happy. I think that was a perfect victory for us.’
While it is early days Stoke, who have now lost 4-0 at home to Tottenham twice in a row, will do well to equal or improve the ninth-placed finishes of the last three years.
Hughes, who denied that he had sworn during his dismissal, gave debuts to Bruno Martins Indi and Wilfried Bony but both look like they need more game time.
‘We’ve got things to work on, clearly, which is what we’ll do and we’ll have a better performance, I’m sure, next week,’ he said.
It would appear that the home side are the ones in need of some plink plink fizz.