Son leads Spurs on victory stroll
IT TAKES a brave man to gamble with Premier League points at stake but Mauricio Pochettino rolled the dice again – and came up trumps.
The Tottenham boss left star pair Harry Kane and Christian Eriksen on the bench. But their understudies – in particular Man-of-theMatch Heung-min Son – proved able against clueless Leicester.
The South Korean led the line superbly, curling home a beauty to end a sterile first-half in stunning fashion.
Then he turned provider by finding Dele Alli, who nodded past Kasper Schmeichel before the hour to kill the game stone dead.
The changes came less than a week after Pochettino had drawn criticism for switching around a winning team from the midweek triumph over Inter Milan for the north London derby at the Emirates – and he was taught a painful lesson.
But the three points here lifted the club into third – and also gave them their best return of points at this stage of the season since their double-winning season in 1961.
There was never any realistic possibility of them not landing the spoils at the King Power Stadium as Spurs turned in a performance that didn’t scale the heights but rather did hit the right notes.
But while the north Londoners were without
Kane through
Leicester 0 Spurs 2 Neil Moxley
choice, they weren’t the only side shorn of their talisman.
Leicester’s star striker Jamie Vardy sat out the midweek draw at Fulham and his troublesome groin forced him to sit out this one, too.
Without its headline acts, the first period was little more than a waste of 45 minutes of everyone’s time.
It got a desperately needed injection of life thanks to Son’s brilliant strike. Then when he set up Alli for the second both sides were on course for what they deserved – Spurs a win and Leicester a beating.
Eriksen was called into action from the bench and Spurs looked the more likely to add to their tally on the break as the Foxes flung themselves forward desperately but with precious little impact.
When Kane also entered the fray with 15 minutes left, it appeared as though Leicester were having salt rubbed into very open wounds.