TOTTENHAM WITHSTOOD MOUNTING injury problems and a spirited Wolves fightback to claim a tense 3-2 victory at Molineux on Saturday evening.
On an evening when the depth of his squad seemed at risk of being exposed with an injury to Mousa Dembele and a shaky Premier League debut by Juan Foyth, Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino saw his side almost contrive to throw away a 3-0 lead.
Yet goals from Erik Lamela, Lucas Moura and Harry Kane inside the first 61 minutes did prove enough for victory despite two late penalties from Wolves setting up a grandstand finale.
For Pochettino, three points came against a backdrop of a thinning squad, with Davinson Sanchez rested on the bench and Dele Alli left at home as the manager tried to manage his stretched resources ahead of next week’s crucial Champions League tie against PSV Eindhoven.
For a while, it threatened to be Tottenham’s undoing but they had just enough in the tank to climb above north London rivals Arsenal into fourth place in the Premier League.
It took just six minutes for Pochettino’s injury worries to escalate when Belgian midfielder Dembele went down off the ball.
He was helped around the edge of the pitch before being lifted onto a stretcher and wheeled down the tunnel.
He was replaced from the substitutes’ bench by Son Heung-Min in a change that forced a reshuffle, with Moussa Sissoko moving to his less favoured holding midfield role.
Dembele joined knee injury victim Victor Wanyama on the sidelines along with Eric Dier, who is nursing a thigh problem, to leave young England prospect Harry Winks as the only specialist central midfielder at Pochettino’s disposal.
With 18-year-old Oliver Skipp among the substitutes for Tottenham and seemingly the next man in line for a midfield berth, Winks finds himself as a key figure for his club as he looks to push his claims for his country’s next internationals later this month.
Alli, an established England player who was rested to protect him from a possible recurrence of a hamstring injury, could yet be pressed into action in a deeper-lying midfield role.
After a disjointed opening from both teams, Spurs scored twice in three minutes to turn the match decisively in their favour.
First, on 27 minutes, Lamela produced touches of real quality to hold off two defenders, play a clever one-two with Son and fire a crisp, low finish past Rui Patricio in Wolves’ goal.
Then some poor defending from the hosts contributed to the visitors’ second in the 29th minute.
Matt Doherty and Ryan Bennett both failed to pick up Moura, giving the winger a free, far-post header from Kieran Trippier’s right-wing cross.
When Kane made it 3-0 on 61 minutes, forcing home a rebound after Patricio had parried his initial shot, the game looked to be over as a contest.
But Wolves set up a grandstand finish with two penalties, both conceded by debutant Foyth.
First the young Tottenham defender fouled Raul Jimenez, with Ruben Neves converting from the spot in the 68th minute.
When Foyth tripped Jonny in the 79th minute, it was Jimenez who scored the spot-kick to leave Spurs sweating before their win was finally sealed.
Subscribe to our new podcast, Heineken Rugby Weekly on The42, here:
Watch Royal Rumble 2003. Around the 8 minute mark Edge and Rey Mysterio give him a double dropkick but Edge goes right across his face and breaks his nose!
The worst one pat. Remember m n m? When the guy got the ladder right in the face. Complete botch. His nose spread across his face
Joey hasn’t been the same since and is effectively retired (training in nxt now). One of the worst injuries I’ve witnessed.
Oh God. Yeh, that one is foul!
I love watching NFL, but the number of former players committing suicide because of the CTE-related dementia is scary and really needs to be addressed.
It’s not just just the older guys suffering symptoms either, linebacker Jovan Belcher who was only 26 and still playing for the KC Chiefs last year, murdered the mother of his child and committed suicide.
How long before they wake up and change the rules?
Where is it claimed that this had to do with cte? The reasoning behind that particular tragedy says he had a row with his gf over whether their daughter was his or not.
I think it’s really admirable what chris is doing but other tragedies shouldn’t be cited to push an agenda…
Belcher was a 3 time All America wrestler as well as a crunching linebacker whose job it is to crash head first repeatedly into 250lb+ blockers and running backs… head trauma much?
It is also well documented by close colleagues and friends that he displayed all the early stage signs of cte, e.g. depression, memory loss, confusion, aggressive behaviour etc…
…but hey if you think shooting his girlfriend 9 times and then himself was a perfectly sane, rational response to a row over the daughter then fair enough.
Like I said I love watching nfl, but it doesn’t take a genius to realise that repeatedly leading with their helmets, as they are taught to do from a young age, causes major problems later in life.
Was the same story with the Chris Benoit murder suicide. Everyone put it down to roid rage or personal issues with his wife but Nowinski worked with Benoits father closely and when they did an autopsy on the brain of Chris Benoit they discovered that due to the number of concussions Chris Benoit suffered he had a brain the equivalent to an elderly person suffering dementia. It was then argued how many dementia sufferers kill their family but I would argue back how many are physically capable of doing so.
After this was high lighted WWE took steps to prevent this. Unprotected chair shots to the head are banned, certain moved such as piledrivers and top rope head butts (incidentally one of Benoits finishers) are banned. On the other hand American Football associations have stuck their head in the sand.
Billy Korgan.
Karl Pilkingtons twin. :)
I agree that the NFL has to do more to
protect players – the constant impact to the brain in the sport is definitely related to depression later in a players life, as seen with linebacker Junior Seau. I also think that the NFL isn’t strict enough in regards to PEDs – so many players nowadays are on HGH and other banned substances – the combination of both brain trauma and dangerous substances does even more damage to the body. No wonder ex players are suing.
Interesting piece, but the link on Twitter was called “We’re putting our kids at too much risk by letting them play certain contact sports. Here’s how we can change that:”
This doesn’t really come close to addressing that…