Anything is possible. There was a palpable sense of this around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday, as Spurs made it three wins from three league games under Nuno Espirito Santo to go top of the nascent Premier League table.
A single goal, a free-kick curled home by Son Heung-min on the beat of half time, did the trick against a Watford team who came to play but couldn’t get a grip as Spurs, with Harry Kane back in from the start, impressed again under their new manager’s new direction.
As they look down from the summit on the chasing pack, there is cause for true hope that the worst of an ungainly transition is behind them.
It all began rather steadily. On 11 minutes Japhet Tanganga, looking at home at right-back in his third league start this season, reached superbly to save a lost cause and hook the ball back from the byline.
So startled was Steven Bergwijn by the athleticism he could hardly negotiate with his own feet in time, his hurried effort deflected over the bar by Craig Cathcart.
Tanganga though had announced himself as an overlapping threat on the right, a status he would retain throughout an accomplished afternoon.
It stirred something in Spurs and suddenly the left channel too, with Bergwijn and the revived Dele Alli darting and probing, looked wide open. Kane, starting for the first time in the league under Nuno, drifted out wide and bothered the full-back Cathcart, standing him up one-on-one and showing off the fluidity of Spurs’ front line.
That renewed sense of Tottenham hope reared its head fully when Kane and Son made their first meaningful link-up in the Watford penalty area, a sight Spurs fans spent the summer fearing they might never again see.
There can’t have been two players in the last 30 years of the Premier League with such a kismetic knack for knowing where the other is about to appear: Cole and Yorke, maybe; Ljungberg and Pires, perhaps. Kane and Son’s harmonies clearly have not been toned down by such a disruptive summer. The chance came to nothing, but the stadium breathed its approval with an appreciative coo.
And yet when the opening goal came, Son barely needed his running mate, nor any other assistance, save for the element of surprise as his whipped free-kick from the left evaded everybody in the box and glided past the wrong-footed Daniel Bachmann as the Watford keeper waited in vain for a touch.
There was another phenomenon of Spurs’ rise under former boss Mauricio Pochettino that returned here, namely the welcome sight of Alli, interested and dangerous again after such a dispiriting couple of seasons, getting on the ball in midfield and daring Spurs’ front three to look for space to dance in behind Watford. This is not yet Alli circa 2018, when he seemed able to mould the shape of a game at will. But the signs are encouraging.
The lead should have been doubled on 67 minutes, and the move was everything the home fans were once used to but have lately been starved of. Son stole the ball in midfield and checked his run just enough for Kane to spring past him on the right, and Spurs’ returning talisman crossed deftly for Alli to flick agonisingly wide. All the work of Tottenham’s most iconic trio of the last decade, it was a sight to stir the senses of the most casual supporter.
That was Tottenham’s cue to raise things a gear, and now the chances began to come freely. Lucas Moura, on as a substitute having made way for Kane to start, exploded into the box from the right and forced Bachmann into a low, stretching save, and the Austrian was alert again minutes later to turn Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s deflected free-kick around the post.
Kane had his own chance to mark his Premier League return on this ground with a goal, but again the visiting keeper was determined the game shouldn’t slip away from his team, and beat away the shot with two firm palms from 12 yards.
And that was all it needed from Spurs. Nuno’s team are top, and suddenly everything seems possible.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3BjA88r
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