Tottenham 3 Crystal Palace 1: Son completes late turnaround as Spurs extend gap to Man Utd in Champions League race
JUST when the honeymoon period looked over, another late comeback made Spurs fans fall in love with Ange Postecoglou’s team all over again.
The spark had looked to have gone out for the Australian’s side with another underwhelming display – for the most part.
The spark had looked to have gone out for the Australian’s side with another underwhelming display – for the most part.
When Eberechi Eze fired home a gorgeous free-kick just before the hour, Champions League-chasing Tottenham were staring down the barrel of back-to-back home defeats.
But then Spurs pulled it out of the bag with a thrilling climax typical of the Postecoglou tenure.
First, sub Brennan Johnson on 77 minutes teed up a chance so good even Timo Werner could not miss as the RB Leipzig loanee netted his first goal for the club.
Three minutes later Cristian Romero rose highest to head into the net and complete the turnaround, before skipper Son Heung-min finished Palace off.
It kept up the pressure on Aston Villa in the race for fourth.
While Oliver Glasner was consigned to his first defeat as Palace boss.
And after subbing his goalscorer Eze before any of the Spurs goals, one wonders if the Austrian will get the same flak as his predecessor Roy Hodgson did when doing the same thing at Everton in January.
This game completed a weird quirk of the fixture list for Spurs: three consecutive 3pm kick-offs on a Saturday.
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They had been slow starters in the two previous ones, as well as the comeback win over Brentford before that, and it was the same story here.
Whether it is a case of their relentless injuries catching up with them – Pedro Porro and Richarlison were missing here – or teams starting to work them out, it has been much harder work of late for Ange Postecoglou’s side.
James Maddison has not looked to be in his lock-unpicking prime since returning from an ankle ligament injury and the whole team is lacking creativity.
It did not help either that Glasner’s side put, at times, all ten outfield players behind the ball in a 4-5-1 system straight out of the Hodgson playbook.
The Austrian’s men were disciplined, with January recruit Adam Wharton putting a composed display in the middle of the park.
Chances were rare in a drab first half but Werner had a huge one with 18 minutes played.
Rodrigo Bentancur picked Eze’s pocket, allowing Son to release Werner first time.
The German did the first bit beautifully, controlling the ball and haring towards goal.
But as we saw so many times at Chelsea, he lacked confidence in front of goal, tried to go round Sam Johnstone when he should have shot.
When he did finally pull the trigger, England stopper Johnstone was too near to him and made a fine stop.
Frustrations were simmering as Maddison took umbrage at a clear shove from Jefferson Lerma – while there were ground from the terraces going into the break.
Spurs looked better after the interval, as they so often have in their unconvincing last six weeks or so.
They could and perhaps should have had a penalty when Daniel Munoz appeared to trip Werner, but ref John Brooks said no and VAR backed him up.
Shortly afterwards, the hosts struck the woodwork as Son’s first-time effort from Dejan Kulusevski’s cross cracked against the near post.
But just as Postecoglou’s side were building up a head of steam, Eze danced his way towards their backline and was cynically taken out by Bentancur, who was cautioned.
Eze picked himself up and fired home the resulting free-kick from 20 yards with a gorgeous strike, much to the joy of his family members watching on from a box.
Postecoglou responded by bringing on Johnson and the Welshman quickly squandered a good chance to level, blazing over after Son had deflected Werner’s cross into his path.
Son, playing back through the middle in Richarlson’s absence, then dragged a shot just wide as Spurs looked to hit back.
Palace tried to slow the clock down as Johnstone was booked for time-wasting when taking a goal kick.
Then, almost out of nowhere, came Spurs’ goal frenzy.
Johnson picked Joachin Andersen’s pocket out wide and laid the ball on a plate for Werner to fire home.
The hosts went ahead when Romero beat Joel Ward in the air to nod in James Maddison’s lofted ball.
And the game was done when Johnson sent Son steaming through and the South Korean did the honours for his 20th goal of the season for club and country.