IT’S HOT TROSS FUN... AS SPURS EASTER BIN-IT!
Conte’s shotless flops ‘too slow’ as the top-four race is thrown wide open again
FOR a team that isn’t directly involved in the race for the top four, Brighton seem determined to have a major say in how it finishes.
Last weekend it was Arsenal whose hopes they dented in north London.
And yesterday the Seagulls were back in the same neck of the woods doing likewise to Tottenham.
It wasn’t until the 90th minute that the visitors finally made the breakthrough this time, Leandro Trossard turning inside Eric Dier before applying a neat finish inside Hugo Lloris’s far post with the outside of his boot. But they had been the better team for much of the game, boxing Spurs into their own half for large parts of it, and fully deserved their victory.
In fact, so hard did Antonio Conte’s Spurs find it to get forward that they failed to muster a shot on target.
Brighton only managed five themselves in a fixture which won’t live long in the memory.
Although perhaps long enough for Spurs fans to wonder what might have been had they won it if, at the end of the season, one of Arsenal, Manchester United or West Ham have pipped them to a final Champions League spot, which was just starting to look like it had their name on it. Conte (right)
said: “For sure, it was not a good result for us.
“A lesson that we can learn from it is that there are games that if you are not able to win, you don’t lose.
“It was very, very clear that it wasn’t our day.
“It was very important to get three points as we played before our rivals in the race for the Champions League.
“But the game was very difficult because it was a tactical game for both sides and Brighton were very good at closing every space.
“We helped them in this job because we moved the ball slowly and we should be able to do much better.
“Maybe a draw would have been a fairer final result but Brighton played a good game – if you win against Arsenal and Tottenham away it means the team is a good team.”
Albion boss Graham Potter said: “It feels even better than beating Arsenal. I thought the performance was a step up, actually.
“The players were incredible – work rate, understanding and discipline, aggression and quality, everything you need because you have to perform well to give yourselves a chance against a top team.
It felt like we had good organisation, and an attitude to run and defend and be brave when we had the ball as well.
“We asked some questions of Spurs, it wasn’t a smash and grab.
“We tried to press high, win the ball back and we were playing against a lot of world-class players and a team that’s in a great moment.
“We knew we had to be good and we were. It was a deserved win.”
This was a bitty game with niggly fouls committed by both sides. Occasionally, it was outright brutal as well and Dejan Kulusevski was perhaps fortunate not to get sent off when he swung an early elbow at Marc Cucurella.
Had he caught the Spaniard flush on the jaw he’d have gone but he escaped with just a caution given that it was more of a brush.
Mind you, Cucurella could also have gone when he stamped on the Swede soon after – but both players stayed on and it was just about fair enough.
Heung-Min Son saw two shots blocked but Spurs never really threatened Robert Sanchez’s goal, and then up popped Trossard at the death to punish them.