Lucky Llorente gets head start
IT doesn’T just rain in swansea, it pours. Forget for one minute the drenching symbolism of storm eleanor over this troubled club, here they were beaten by two of their own and a refereeing contingent that was away with the clouds.
nothing to do with Harry Kane and his many hat-tricks. no. He spent 67 minutes on the bench, a heavy cold taking away his chance of a third treble in three games.
Instead, this was about Fernando Llorente, the striker who kept swansea in the Premier League last season with 15 goals.
How predictable that he would score on his first league start for Tottenham, heading his old mates one step closer to the drop after 12 minutes.
Then there was Ben davies, the academy lad from these parts. It was his diving tackle on Jordan Ayew midway through the second half that stopped a certain equaliser.
That combination would have been painful enough in isolation; the further contribution of the referee, Bobby Madley, was just plain infuriating, given the error in allowing Llorente’s goal from an offside position, and then his odd decision to spare davinson sanchez a second yellow card in the second half.
In a season where swansea have done so much to shoot themselves in the foot — as well as hand, knee and backside — this was a defeat that felt rather harsh, given how little luck they had before dele Alli wrapped up the game at the death.
But that is their problem. As for spurs, on they go, rising to fifth after five wins in six. They have four points to make up to Liverpool in fourth, but they are moving at pace and next face West Ham tomorrow, although they are likely to be without danny Rose.
The injury he suffered against southampton was to the same knee that kept him out for 10 months, but after missing this game, Mauricio Pochettino allayed any serious fears by saying he was ‘not concerned’ by the latest issue.
on the matter of a fortunate win, the spurs boss added: ‘The conditions were so, so difficult to play so I am happy.
‘You could see it (Llorente’s goal) was offside, maybe. Always in football you need some luck, but in the end I think we deserved the victory anyway.’
That is a little debatable, despite Tottenham dominating the first half- hour to an almost absurd degree. swansea had sat back and invited spurs to attack, but after emerging only one goal down, they were improved in the final hour. Having beaten Watford in Carlos Carvalhal’s first game, they might have got something here, with Renato sanches again improving and Luciano narsingh, Ayew and Mike van der Hoorn having chances.
Ultimately, too much went against them, including Madley, whose assistant Marc Perry apologised to Carvalhal for Llorente’s goal.
Further contrition might be felt over the call to let sanchez stay on after taking down Martin olsson, with Pochettino responding to the reprieve by immediately substituting his defender.
Carvalhal said: ‘I have only just arrived in the Premier League, so I do not talk about referees. Just two points — the linesman apologised at the end and, second point, Pochettino is a clever manager because he took off sanchez at that moment.’
Perhaps a slightly lucky manager as well.