TOTTENHAM

SON HEUNG-MIN was able to strike a cunning late blow for Tottenham just when it seemed like the Premier League side had run out of strikers.

With Harry Kane injured and Vincent Janssen still struggling to find his feet in England, Mauricio Pochettino made a brave gamble with his substitutes to get his team’s Champions League campaign back on track.

Pochettino was left with very few options to try to shake things up and the first substitution was to introduce midfielder Georges-Kevin Nkoudou, 21, for Janssen, the only recognised striker on the pitch.

It left many scratching their heads but proved to be an absolute masterstroke.

Son was the one delegated to take over the spearheading duties and the change took just five minutes to take effect.

Erik Lamela played the ball in to him and, although goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev managed to take most of the pace off the South Korean’s shot, to the agonised silence of almost the entire Arena CSKA the ball trickled over the line to reinforce Pochettino’s reputation as a leader of strategic brilliance.

Moscow has never been the easiest place to conquer but, having slipped up in their opening ‘home’ Champions League game at Wembley by losing to Monaco, Pochettino had marched into Russia demanding nothing less than all three points.

And Christian Eriksen, Son and Lamela were quickly snapping around the CSKA penalty area but struggling to find much change with the Russians sitting so deep.

The experienced Moscow side were more than content to try to hit Tottenham on the break and, amid some otherwise resolute defending from Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld, Zoran Tosic was given far too much time