London: Tottenham Hotspur’s performance has given them their best start to a season in 60 years and the 2-0 win against Everton – who lifted their game a little after a 5-0 thrashing here last season – was their eighth successive league win at home stretching back to last season.
Spurs manager, Antonio Conte said: “To see the intensity we played with tonight was really positive. It shows if you work in the right way, the performance of your players is always up. I am really delighted for the players because this performance repaid the effort they put in everyday. We are doing everything with common sense.”
He added: “This stadium has to become our fortress. I’m really pleased for our fans. They give us a lot of push to be more, more and more for the club.”
Tottenham began the stronger of the two teams but there were early chances that they missed. Heung-Min Son created a chance in the 5th minute with a fine curling cross but Harry Kane failed to make contact for a header. Two minutes later Son’s free kick found Ivan Perisic on the left and his cross was put over the bar by Richarlson.
Everton too had their misses. Midway in the first half Demarai Gray did well to beat Rodrigo Bentancur and raced down the right towards the goal but put his shot high over the bar from six yards having made the angle a bit tight for the shot.
A better chance came two minutes before halftime when two Tottenham players, Pierre-Emile Hojberg and Crisian Romero went for a loose ball and missed it as Amadou Onana picked it up on the run but pushed it too far in front of himself as the lifted a hurried shot over the bar.
Having had the better of the first half, Spurs took the lead in the 59th minute with a penalty when Jordan Pickford spilled a shot from Matt Doherty and as he desperately dived to retrieve the ball, he brought down Harry Kane. The Spur striker’s shot resulted in his 258th goal, just eight short of the club’s record held by the legendary Jimmy Greaves. It was also Kane’s 15th goal in 16 matches against Everton.
Kane said: “Jordan just dived down and took me out. He was probably a bit unlucky but I’ll take it. I’ve practiced so many against Jordan (his team-mate for England). We kept knocking on the door and got a couple of chances. It was a really good win.”
Four minutes before normal time, Tottenham put the game beyond their opponents. Bentancur crossed to the unmarked Hojberg who jinked to his right for a shot that took a slight deflection from Alex Iwobi and found the net.
Everton manager, Frank Lampard spoke about the penalty: “Jordan is an amazing goalkeeper. The penalty is the difference in the game, until then everything we were doing was good.”
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