KANE DOES THE TRICK
APOEL NICOSIA ..... 0 TOTTENHAM .......... 3
WHERE there’s a Kane there’s a way – that’s how it feels with Tottenham right now.
Seven stars missing, a Champions League away-day against opponents with a strong home record in Europe, an intimidating atmosphere, and a bobbly pitch.
There were plenty of obstacles capable of tripping Spurs up in Cyprus last night. But it didn’t matter.
They have a player in the form of his life in Harry Kane who is capable solving any problem right now.
That is what he did last night with a perfect hat-trick to make it the perfect start to their Group H campaign for Spurs. And his latest display of goalscoring heroics was just another example of how far the England striker has come in a short time.
In August 2014 a littleknown Kane came to Cyprus and scored just his sixth goal for Spurs, the winner in a 2-1 win at AEL Limassol, Mauricio Pochettino’s first European game in charge.
Last night Kane returned to the country as one of Europe’s most-feared marksmen and opened the scoring with his 106th goal for the club, an incredible return in just over three years.
For a man obsessed with stats as he bids to match the exploits of two of the world’s best players, Spain-based Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, Kane might well have been aware of the symmetry.
After goals 107 and 108 followed, Kane now has seven in five Champions League games and 11 in just seven games for club and country this month.
More importantly, his latest Roy Of The Rovers display means Spurs head into their double-header with Ronaldo’s Real Madrid with six points and the perfect platform.
Madrid will be favourites to win both games but, even if the worst-case scenario unfolds, they will still be in a good position to qualify.
The home fans paid tribute to former forward Ian Moores, who played for both clubs before passing away in 1998 aged just 43, by raising at kickoff a banner honouring ‘a legend who played for the legend’.
For a while that spared Spurs an unwanted reminder of home as it briefly covered banners with rivals Millwall’s slogan – ‘no-one likes us but we don’t care’ – in front of APOEL’s raucous Orange Madness ultras.
A bigger concern for boss Pochettino was the seven players he was forced to leave at home in London due to injury, illness and suspension.
He got around it by moving Ben Davies into the back three, a position he plays for Wales, and deploying Serge Aurier and Kieran Trippier as his wing-backs.
APOEL were happy to put nine, 10 and sometimes even all 11 men behind the ball and challenge Spurs to come and break them down.
And Heung-Min Son spurned two chances to grab an early goal that would have forced the Cypriot champions to come out and play.
On the rare occasions they did break, APOEL posed Spurs plenty of problems, with Igor De Camargo rattling the bar and Roberto Lago blasting into the side-netting.
Carlao headed wide before Hugo Lloris got lucky when his attempted clearance cannoned off Davinson Sanchez and rolled wide rather than in.
APOEL’s tails were up but they were hit by a suckerpunch in the 39th minute when Kane latched onto Toby Alderweireld’s pass just before half-time and fired a leftfooted finish past Boy Waterman to break the deadlock.
After another Son miss early in the second half, Lloris had to produce flying saves to deny Roland Sallai and Stathis Aloneftis an equaliser
And after Spurs rode out that storm from the Cypriots, that man Kane took over,.
First he buried Moussa Sissoko’s cut-back in the 67th minute before heading in Trippier’s cross to complete his hat-trick and another good Champions League night for Spurs.