A Happy Boxing Day to one and all
Another fine team effort and another fine win with the only mystery being why we didn’t coast home by more, a lot more.
In Christmas brazil nutshell
During the first twenty minutes or so there was little sign that the game would become the Boxing Day stroll after lunch that it eventually did. Norwich looked big physically and maybe attempting to outmuscle Dembélé, Alli and Dier was Alex Neill’s game plan as they flooded the midfield and retained shape well. They had a couple of half chances, a header from a corner and birthday boy Hugo turned one curled effort round his left hand post. In return all we offered was a side footed attempt from Alli which was well saved – Kane screwed the rebound wide. Shortly afterwards Lamela played Harry in to the area and his feet were taken from beneath him by the Norwich keeper; Kane Panenka’ed the penalty down the middle and that was the end of the visitors. You could see the sage and onion squeezing out of them. Alderweireld should’ve scored from successive corners and Alli came close too. Our second eventually came when Dembélé and Alli bravely and powerfully won possession after a Norwich attack was broken up. Alli found Kane who had a defender between him and the goal when he created just enough space to shoot low and hard inside the left hand post. A fine goal.
Two down at half time one would’ve expected the visitors to come out all guns blazing but instead the Canaries collapsed like the Griswald Christmas turkey.
We had well and truly found a rhythm. The crowd purred as Lamela, Alli, Kane, Dembélé and Eriksen combined time and again. Alli was dominant in everything he did, this was his best performance in a Spurs shirt so far I’d say. Lamela too was having a good day, his tricks were all coming off for a change (we’ll ignore the four on one disaster late on), he was finding his colleagues with panache and even threw in a cheeky rabona from the edge of the area which drew a smart save from the keeper.
Tom ‘Christmas’ Carroll it was who finally put the result beyond all doubt, firing home from range after Son and Davies had made space for him.
Norwich were there for the taking and if we had scored early in the second half then things could’ve got very ugly for the visiting fans. They filled only three quarters of their section but were noisy until the penalty, after that they sat back in silence and watched the horror unfold.
Gomes, Capoue, we’re coming for you
Already the Newcastle result looks an anomaly, what a shame we didn’t get at least a point from that game. Moussa Dembélé was missing that day of course, he was taken off towards the end today after being clattered. We should really hope that it was precautionary before we play Watford on Monday.
Many happy returns Hugo
As well as everyone mentioned so far skipper Hugo was once again superb today. He was rewarded with a chorus of Happy Birthday; if we come up against many more sides who give up after conceding one goal, we’ll all consider it our birthdays.
Big game on Monday. COYS.
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