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With the regulation five goals stuck away in mid-week in the League Cup
away tie, it was back to Premier League action and following two
defeats, it was expected that Burnley would provide a tough challenge,
but under the warm late September sunshine, it failed to materialise and
Spurs ran out easy 5-0 winners.
While the Burnley manager Owen Coyle seems to think that his team
controlled long periods of the game, in reality, Tottenham could have
racked up double figures, while they might have conceded a couple of
goals, but that is often likely to happen with the way Spurs are playing
at the moment. And with a tough decision to keep Robbie Keane in
the side against recalling hat-trick hero Peter Crouch, Harry proved
that his insistence for competition for places is keeping everyone on
top form.
While Burnley got an early corner, their
attacking rarely brought any periods of pressure and in this division,
it is necessary to keep pressure on if you intend to score, as few teams
are capable of grabbing wins without doing so. When they got
through they failed to seriously test Cudicini and with ten minutes
gone, Keane should have given Tottenham the lead, when Jenas put a pass
that cut through the defence and left the Irishman one-on-one with Brian
Jensen. The Beast spread himself and the Tottenham skipper could
not get the ball past his bulk on this occasion, but you felt that had
Defoe been the recipient of the chance, that he would have had the ball
nestling in the back of the net.
When Jenas cracked a volley high over the
bar from a difficult volley when a free-kick was headed out, it looked
as though the chances being created would not be taken, especially when
Fletcher evaded Assou-Ekotto and Kranjcar's attentions and hit a shot
that Huddlestone and Bassong did well to get in way of. But with
Spurs breaking quickly, Corluka slipped a pass down the right side of
the penalty area, with Defoe getting to it first and as he moved towards
the goal-line, Andre Bikey closed in for a tackle, but awkwardly knocked
Defoe off balance and the linesman crossed his flag over his chest to
indicate a penalty. Keane took the responsibility and slid the
ball into the opposite corner to Jensen's plunge to his right to make it
1-0 in the 18th minute.
Burnley could have got back on level
terms had Fletcher got over his free header from a corner, but he could
only nod the ball over the bar and the same player appeared disappointed
to see his "goal" wiped off for offside, but he had planted the ball in
the net some time after the whistle had gone. The joyous
Lancashire fans were to be sadly disappointed too !! The only
other effort that brought a save from Cudicini was when Corluka tried to
shield the ball out of play, but didn't succeed (how often does he do
this without learning) and Nugent got away from him and Huddlestone to
shoot at the near post, but Carlo got his body behind it. So it
left the chances to come from Tottenham.
In the 27th minute, Spurs could have
scored a finely crafted goal, with Keane linking with Jermaine Jenas to
play a back-heeled pass through to Jermain Defoe and one-on-one, he took
it with his left foot and put the ball a few yards wide from just about
five yards out. Jensen was busy again, as he grabbed a cross from
Lennon on the right that was coming in under his bar, but with 33
minutes on the clock, he could only stand and watch the second Spurs
goal go in. Kranjcar's shot came back off a defender and Jenas
took a snap-shot, that came off Jordan to foil any movement the keeper
could have made, so he didn't bother. The ball went in the far
corner to Jensen's right and it was just reward for the midfielder's
hard work between the boxes.
Defoe hit a tame shot straight at Jensen
after Huddlestone, who had a fine match, played him in on the edge of
the box and the striker had turned Carlisle with ease, then Lennon
caused havoc on the left after exchanging passes with Keane, before
crossing low to the near post and forced Bikey into a hurried
interception that brought a fine reflex stop from Jensen, who managed to
grab the ball as it popped up off him. Then Defoe hit a weak shot
at Jensen and Kranjcar played the ball to Jenas, who tried to curl it,
but it would have needed a bigger bend in it than two Roberto Carlos
free-kicks to have troubled the goalkeeper. Just before the
half-time whistle, Burnley did create an opening on the edge of the box
for David Nugent, who was said to have a point to prove to Harry
Redknapp, who failed to play him for Portsmouth. However, the pint
he proved was that Harry was probably right not to give him a regular
starting role, with a powder puff shot straight at Carlo Cudicini, who
gathered comfortably.
No celebrity at half-time was a little
disappointing, as we all had our money on Ralph Coates coming out and
talking about "us" again - with him referring to Spurs, although he was
brought through by the Turf Moor club. But a successor to his wing
play showed he is fast becoming a more effective performer, as Aaron
Lennon produced a ball into the gap between keeper and defenders that no
Spurs forward had read. His final ball had been much criticised in
the past and now it seems he has learned to utilise the damage that his
pace can cause.
Four minutes after the break, Tyrone
Mears was allowed to get forward down the right and his cross to the far
post was struck by Robbie Blake, but Cudicini got down well to stop the
midfielder's shot. In the 53rd minute, Defoe and Keane swapped
passes and the England striker struck a fierce shot at close range into
Jensen's chest and the ball bounced away, when perhaps a more delicate
or placed effort might have beaten the goalie. It was Defoe's last
action in the match, as he was taken down the tunnel, with what later
transpired to be a finger injury. On came Peter Crouch and we all
sat back awaiting a goal onslaught.
Spurs had to withstand a break into their
box by Fletcher, who was shadowed by Sebastien Bassong and he held off
the attacker for Cudicini to come and gather the ball, but the Italian
keeper didn't do so well when Palacios conceded a free-kick outside the
box and received a yellow card for it. As the free-kick was hit at
goal by Mears, it cleared the wall, but Cudicini took the ball without
to much trouble. However, he somehow managed to fumble the ball
out of his grasp and Blake was quickly onto it and poked a shot against
the post with Cudicini getting it on the way out before the ball was
hacked away. It could have been a costly slip had it lead to a
goal.
Luckily, Tottenham went further ahead in
the 73rd minute, when Lennon got away down the left onto Jenas' pass and
waited for the right moment to pull the ball back to Keane, who was
about ten yards out and struck a rising shot first time into the roof of
the net, with Jensen static.
And it was only four minutes later that
Spurs added to that margin, when Huddlestone played a neat chip over the
rigid back line of Burnley and Keane ran through with the flag kept down
by the linesman this time and hit a low shot across the keeper to
complete his hat-trick and he celebrated long in front of the Paxton
Road.
Harry Redknapp made a sensible
substitution in dispelling the hoodoo surrounding Gareth Bale in the
Tottenham side in the Premier League and with a 4-0 lead, he entered the
fray and was part of a winning Spurs side in the for the first time out
of 21 appearances. It will be a weight of the Welshman's shoulders
and he can now go on to develop as a better player without the weight of
that tag hanging over him.
And shortly after his introduction,
Tottenham added a fifth, when Cudicini kicked long, Crouch on a header
on to Keane and taking the ball on wide on the right, he played a shot
that went straight through Jensen and through his legs, in off the post,
to embarrass him for the captain's fourth of the game and giving
Tottenham a 5-0 score-line.
In the last minute and three added
minutes, there was still and opportunity for Crouch to head home from
Keane's cross, but he headed wide from a few yards out at the near post
and then Kranjcar put in a great cross across the face of goal and Keane
slid in but missed getting any decent contact on the ball from a yard
out. The referee showed good form in going back to book Clarke
Carlisle, who had blatantly taken out Tom Huddlestone in the build-up to
the latter chance.
In truth, Spurs had not been fully
functioning in the first half, but in the second, they played ruthlessly
in terms of the finishing. And while last week at Chelsea, they
failed to capitalise on the chances they made, this week, the strikers
were much better and with even better finishing, Defoe could have had a
couple of goals, Keane a couple more and Crouch a header that went wide.
With fifteen pints on the board and with
some winnable matches to come in the next few weeks, it is a period of
the season when Tottenham need to push on and make it count.
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