POCH ADMITS HE FEARS LURE OF LA LIGA MAY TEMPT HOT-SHOT HARRY AWAY FROM SPURS

FOR the briefest of moments, there was hope. And then there was none, all gone in the space of two minutes in the second half when Harry Kane rubbed the sleep from his eyes, rolled up a newspaper and chased this underdog out of the house. His two goals here were nothing special, far from it. But they made up the bulk of a wide scoreline in a fixture which only once threatened to get interesting when Jimmy Abdou hit Spurs’ bar at 0-0. The rest was as you would expect — an almighty blitz of Tottenham possession, too many missed chances and the usual contribution of Kane, who took the game from 0-0 on 63 minutes to 2-0 on 65, AFC Wimbledon blown away in 111 seconds before Jan Vertonghen wrapped it all up. It was quite something from Vertonghen, a goal from 30 yards or so, but really it was all about Kane, who again moved up Tottenham’s list of all-time scorers, his tally of 125 taking him past Teddy Sheringham. It was also about a lingering question that has been given a timely edge by Philippe Coutinho’s move from Liverpool to Barcelona, underlining what we all know about football’s foodchains. ‘Coutinho shows how difficult it is to keep players,’ Pochettino said. ‘Liverpool is one of the biggest in the world and Coutinho wants to leave. Look what happened with Ronaldo at Manchester United, Zidane at Juve, Figo in Barcelona. It’s so tough to keep your player if he wants to leave. ‘I think Harry is special, so special, because he loves Tottenham, and he feels Tottenham, but we need to be careful, and be clever how we manage him. You cannot force everyone to stay here and I think our job is to try to work

together, to try to achieve all we want. ‘Only a few players are so special they can spend their whole careers at one club. I think Harry is this type of player, but in football you can’t be sure of anything.’ Having the likes of Real Madrid sniffing around sharpens the sense that it is time for this Tottenham project to start reaping silver rewards. Their progress under Pochettino has been exceptional but this feels like a decisive season if they are to maintain the happiness of brilliant players on comparatively low salaries. For that reason, perhaps, Pochettino seems to have found a little more respect for this competition. He went to great lengths this week to amend comments from earlier in the season when he said the FA Cup ‘meant nothing’. Indeed, Neal Ardley, the Wimbledon manager, thought it was a ‘wind up’ when he was told Pochettino was starting Kane. He found room for Kyle Walker-Peters, 20, and Juan Foyth, 19, who both were solid enough in the defence, but otherwise it was a formidable line-up. As such, they utterly controlled it. They had 81 per cent of possession and 26 shots. Kane missed a heap of chances in the first half alone. It got a little nervy when Wimbledon had their one notable opening on 29 minutes, with Michel Vorm pushing Abdou’s strike on to the bar, but as well as Wimbledon played in keeping the score level for an hour, the goals felt inevitable. As it transpired, Kane twice scored from six yards and Vertonghen got his first for the club since October 2013, three goals separated by just eight minutes.