Sports

Kane: United Wednesday win must be template for Spurs’ season

You might prefer the Real Madrid game, or the 4-1 drubbing against Liverpool earlier this season.

Then there were the twin demolitions of Manchester City at White Hart Lane in 2015 and 2016. Or the thrilling 2-0 win over Antonio Conte’s Chelsea last season. Or the underrated North London derby win in February 2015 that truly announced Harry Kane as a big-match player.

But one thing is for certain: any conversation about Tottenham’s best ever performances under Mauricio Pochettino must include their 2-0 win against Manchester United at Wembley on Wednesday night.

From the moment they took the lead after 11 seconds through Christian Eriksen, they never looked like relinquishing it.

The only downside, as Kane put it afterwards, was that they did not complete the thrashing their dominance merited.

Kane had his own views on where this performance rated in the Pochettino era.

“I’d say top five, probably,” he said afterwards. “We’ve had some good performances, especially at home against the big teams, but this one is definitely up there. Throughout the game, they never really looked like threatening us.”

One notable feature of the game was how Manchester United were physically dominated in a way you rarely see happening to Jose Mourinho teams.

Though he did not score, Kane was a big part of that, holding his own against Chris Smalling and Phil Jones in the aerial battles, and helping set up Eriksen’s 11th-second opener from a raking long ball straight from kick-off that may as well have been a set-piece.

Are these things planned? “Now and then,” Kane said. “Sometimes we say before the game, ‘Let’s go for this today’, and it worked out well. It set us off for getting runners in behind, trusting that we’re going to win the first ball and then the second ball.

 

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