HARRY XMAS!
Kane hat-trick equals Shearer record after Alli kickstarts Spurs by winning penalty
TOTTENHAM’S first away win since September displaced Burnley from the top six and restored a familiar hierarchy up there. But it took a dubious stroke of fortune to get them under way before Harry Kane delivered a familiar performance of outstanding class.
The rancour spread from the stands to the Tottenham dug-out as the night wore on and Mauricio Pochettino’s coaching staff were clearly agitated by two individuals making their feelings felt in the Burnley corporate seats. The source of it all was the penalty — won by Dele Alli, converted by Kane — which proved pivotal.
But the superior side most certainly took the points. Tottenham gradually eased into the ascendancy, missing two clear chances before wrapping the night up against a home side whose performance was riddled with uncharacteristic errors.
Gradually, Alli’s role as the pantomime villain was superseded by that of Kane, who completed a hattrick which sees him equal Alan Shearer’s record of 36 Premier League goals in a calendar year.
Kane said: ‘It was a tough game but to win 3-0 was good and we missed good chances. I was aware of the record. I was hoping to get a couple today and two more at Southampton but it is an important day and three points.
‘The penalty was a penalty. The fans are going to get on someone’s back. We played well.’
For his part, Sean Dyche had played down the autumn’s high rolling which had sent Burnley into the match a point and place above their opponents and set in motion a Christmas programme which, with Manchester United and Liverpool to play in the next eight days, will tell us more about his side.
Burnley have become well enough acquainted with the vagaries of refereeing decisions to know that the faintest contact can have brutal consequences.
It is a month since Aaron Ramsey dropped to the ground like a stone after a touch in the back, to earn a match-winning penalty for Arsenal. So it was hard to feel anything but sympathy at another bout of theatrics as the devil in Dele Alli found Tottenham the penalty which established a lead — so precious against a side who had conceded only 12 goals all season. Kevin Long — deputising for James Tarkowski in Dyche’s defence — encroached into Alli’s personal space and down he went. To have booked him for simulation would have meant dismissal, given that the player took only five minutes to enter the referee’s book for a mindless leap into a tackle on defender Charlie Taylor, both feet off the turf. So Michael Oliver took the standard option. The easy one.
The despatched penalty made it 34 Premier League goals in 2017 for Harry Kane and there were two more to come for him.
In flashes we also saw more of the kind of Spurs football which the Englishman has spearheaded in the past 12 months.
Alli was generally at the hub of it, executing an angular, reverse pass on 13 minutes which allowed Kane — offside when he first received the ball athough not deemed so — to shoot sharply a few inches wide of Nick Pope’s left post.
A rapid, t hree- man counterattacking move saw Alli ferry Christian Eriksen’s ball on to Moussa Sissoko who, streaking towards goal, drew a sharp double save from Pope, using his feet on both occasions.
It looked immediately like an uphill task for a home side whose 16-goal Premier League tally — joint fourth lowest in the division — tells its own story, though one of their brief incursions brought yet another setback. Chris Wood hustled Sissoko put of possession, fed Steven Defour and raced into the six- yard box to take the return pass.
He collided with Hugo Lloris as the ball skidded on and departed t he field minutes l ater, t o be replaced by Ashley Barnes.
Burnley were aggrieved that Sam Vokes had a goal chalked off for a barge on Lloris — marginal again — but were simply not at their sharpest. Pope’s distribution was