HERE WE GOA KANE
Striker back in the old routine to lift Spurs’ Euro hopes
HARRY KANE shrugged off his lockdown rustiness to boost Spurs’ Champions League hopes with a clinical late strike.
The England man had struggled for sharpness in Spurs’ opening draw with Manchester United – but against a battling Hammers he finally struck.
West Ham, so poor against Wolves on Saturday, were much sharper here, but were unlucky when Tomas Soucek, right, put through his own goal from a corner – but the ball looked like it brushed a Spurs arm before it reached him.
HARRY KANE dived to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium turf in front of the empty giant bank of seats to celebrate his return to goalscoring form.
Invited to run from 40 yards on the exposed Lukasz Fabianski, he raced clear to net goal No137 in his 200th Premier League appearance – with only Sergio Aguero scoring one more in a similar number of games.
Moreover, it put minds at rest that Kane can still do it after testing even the faith of Jose Mourinho earlier in the game.
The Tottenham manager spent his pre-match press conference listing a galaxy of striking talent that has thrived under his management over the years, from Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto’o to Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
And you would have backed any of those – indeed, a fully-fit Kane himself – to have put away an earlier chance that came his way in the 54th minute.
A sweeping move involving Dele Alli, Lucas Moura, Son Heung-Min and Giovani Lo Celso picked out the England striker in the area and those lucky enough to be inside the ground expected the net to bulge on the nation’s behalf.
But his low shot trickled wide of the far post.
Mourinho slumped into his seat but luckily Tottenham were able to find another means to nose in front – albeit one tinged with more than a fair amount of controversy.
VAR cleared Tottenham’s opener despite the fact that Lo Celso’s corner appeared to brush the arm of Davinson Sanchez before hitting the unsuspecting
Tomas Soucek and bouncing into his own net. But it seemed that West Ham were not going to get any luck at all when their best chance of the night – a rasping shot from the impressive Jarrod Bowen, cannoned back off the post in the 78th minute.
In truth, though, a Spurs side with their talisman fully up and running might have been out of sight.
In fairness to Kane, this was a quantum leap better than his tepid display against
Manchester United. A thumping shot into the body in the first half and a clever nearpost flick in the second both tested Fabianski as Kane honed his finishing instinct.
The former Arsenal goalkeeper produced an even better save from Moura after 23 minutes and watched bemused as the same player thought he had scored in first-half injury time with the goal at his mercy. But VAR had at least done its job this time after Tottenham thought they
had broken the deadlock. Lo Celso had skipped and turned on the edge of the area to feed the ball out to Son.
The Korean’s low drive inside the near post would have been the perfect finish if the little toe on his left foot had not been quite so far advanced when the ball was played out to him.
But having preached the need for flair players, David Moyes left Felipe Anderson and Manuel Lanzini on the bench until they were already a goal behind and a second successive defeat always had some sort of sense of inevitability. This was only the fourth clean sheet Tottenham have produced since Mourinho arrived and, save for the Bowen effort, it was never really tested.
Indeed, as the game petered to a close it was Steven Bergwijn who came closest to adding to the scoreline with a shot into the side-netting.
As it is, two was enough – not least because of the identity of the scorer of the second.
Tottenham have cause to believe in themselves again.