PRINCE HARRY
Kane and Tottenham the perfect marriage as he hits 50th goal in 2017
THE Harry Kane Team, Pep Guardiola calls them. The Spurs centre forward gets a lot of the love at Tottenham. He should have had a hat-trick yesterday.
Dele Alli is always in the news, too. Wanted by Barcelona. Got a new public relations company to smooth his move away, they say. Nor is Christian Eriksen short of praise. The Dane gets the plaudits that his rich talent deserves. Tucked away among the Tottenham supporting cast is Heung-min Son. Often, it seems, he does not quite get the plaudits his contributions deserve.
‘He gets the praise he deserves from us,’ said Mauricio Pochettino after this rout of Stoke. The way Son played yesterday at Wembley, it was simply impossible to ignore the impact he made.
Son was brilliant against Mark Hughes’ team, who could not handle his pace, his movement or his invention. He scored one goal and made two as Spurs ran riot in the second half against a side who are stuck somewhere between the doldrums and the danger zone.
On the anniversary of the death of Danny Blanchflower, Son epitomised the glory game Blanchflower once knew.
Spurs may still be a country mile behind runaway leaders Manchester City but, after a run of four league games without a win, this result did at least get their domestic campaign back on track and pushed them back to within touching distance of the top four.
It moved them above Arsenal, until this afternoon at least. Chelsea’s setback at West Ham suggested not only that other London teams are struggling to match last season’s efforts but also that all but Guardiola’s side are still within Spurs’ reach.
Stoke, by contrast, are now only three points clear of the drop zone. ‘I didn’t see that second-half performance coming,’ said Hughes. ‘It wasn’t acceptable. We conceded two very poor goals. At 3-0 down, we needed to take our medicine and limit the damage but we couldn’t do that. Good teams like Spurs pick you off.’
The atmosphere at Wembley had been flat and perhaps a little apprehensive at the start and the stadium seemed cavernous and pockmarked with empty seats but the game finally burst into life midway through the first half. Son was the catalyst. He started in the manner in which he played all afternoon.
Son took on Stoke full-back Thomas Edwards down the Spurs left. Edwards’ other start this season came at the Etihad. Hughes managed a wry smile afterwards and said Edwards might have had a gentler introduction to the Premier League.
It was his misfortune to come up against Son in an unplayable mood. Son tricked him with a step-over to get to the byline, then drilled in a fierce low cross. The ball took one deflection off Kurt Zouma, then cannoned off the head of Ryan Shawcross past Jack Butland and into the Stoke net.
Two minutes later, Stoke were way too predictable when they tried to drill a corner to the edge of the Spurs box. Son read it beautifully, intercepted it, then set off for goal with Eriksen racing clear on his left. Son ignored him and went for goal himself, though Butland comfortably cleared his shot with his feet.
It was all Spurs now. Butland dived full length to push away an Eriksen free-kick, then got in the way of a drive from Mousa Dembele that kicked up in front of him and hit him on the chest before it was scrambled clear.
Spurs should have gone further ahead 10 minutes before half-time when Son threaded a fine pass through to Kane, who turned well and advanced on Butland. The goalkeeper came out to meet him and, even though Kane clipped his shot beyond him, it whistled past Stoke’s right-hand post.
Kane had half a chance to make amends just before the interval when he tried to turn a Kieran Trippier cross past Butland. He failed to make a clean connection though and the ball bounced up and hit Shawcross. Spurs appealed for handball but it was waved away.
Spurs put the match beyond Stoke’s reach within the space of two minutes early in the second half, however. They won the ball deep in their own half and Harry Winks hooked a clever ball on to Alli, who ran at the Stoke defence and played a neat pass into the path of Son. The forward, who had ghosted his way into the perfect position on Zouma’s blind side, ran on to it, took a touch, then fired a low shot past Butland.
A mistake by Butland seconds later nearly let Kane in but a minute