Of course Harry Kane is the headline!
Hat-trick Harry is inevitably the headline for this week's Spurs Odyssey Premier League review, and of course he was voted your man of the match. Harry has now reached 62 Premier Leagaue goals, and has become the fastest Spurs man to hit 60 in the Premier League. He has also now equalled Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe's three Premier League hat-tricks for Spurs. All these goals have been scored in less than three years since Harry's first Premier League goal against Sunderland in April, 2014. Harry is surely destined to be the first man to hit 100 Premier league goals for Spurs. He is behind Teddy Sheringhem (97), and both Keane and Defoe (91).
Harry is a player that we can all be proud of, especially in a week when there have been negative stories about Chelsea's Diego Costa and West Ham's Payet. In fact, with Diego Costa's situation perhaps you might fancy a punt on Harry finishing as the Premier League's top scorer for a second consecutive season? Check out the options on the Best Betting websites. The competition for the Golden Boot is tough with Sanchez, Ibrahimovic, Defoe and Lukaku all in the reckoning with our Harry.
There will be more Kane headlines without a doubt, but he would be the first to state that he could not achieve his goal-scoring feats without the team around and behind him. Christian Eriksen continues to be the chance-creator who keeps on giving. Dele Alli shines brighter than a supernova (that assist for Harry's third was exquisite), and everyone on the field for Spurs excelled. We rightfully fear no one, and that attitude will be taken to Manchester City on Saturday!
We have 9 more points than we had at this time last year, but we are still one point below our best in the Premier league after 21 games in 2011-12. That was one of the seasons when we also had a run of six successive Premier League wins (a run which also included victory over West Brom). We also had such a run last season, also between January and February. Let's hope we can extend the run to a new record of seven wins for Spurs on Saturday!
It was a great week-end for Spurs, who climbed to second playing before everybody else, and held onto that place after City's 4-0 defeat at Goodison Park, and Liverpool's failure to beat Manchester United. To the best of my knowledge, it is the first time this century that both Manchester teams have been outside the top four after 21 games!
This was the first time we scored 4 goals v West Brom in Premier League and biggest win v West Brom since 8th March 1986 when we won 5-0. (Mabbutt, Falco (2), Galvin, Waddle)
There has been no update as yet about Jan Vertonghen's injury. As my good friend Declan Mulcahy reports, January has not been a good month for Jan over the last two years:-
Saturday 17 January 2015
Tottenham Hotspur 2 Sunderland 1
Spurs opened the scoring after 3 minutes with a shot from Vertonghen. While the goal was credited to Vertonghen subsequently the Premier league's Goal Accreditation Panel decided that it was an own goal by O'Shea. Spurs winning goal came from Eriksen with two minutes remaining.
Then deep into time added on Pantilimon the Sunderland goalkeeper left his area and came down to the Spurs box for a corner. Spurs regained control of the ball and Paulinho set up Vertonghen in the Spurs half. He carried the ball into the Sunderland half before scoring with a shot into the empty goal. The goal was wrongly disallowed for offside. He couldn't have been offside since he received the ball in his own half.
Saturday 23 January 2016
Crystal Palace 1 Tottenham Hotspur 3
During the second half Vertonghen suffered damage to the medial collateral ligament in one of his knees. He missed the next nine league games and did not return until 10 April 2016.
On Saturday Jan was replaced after after 65 minutes with what looks like a serious injury to his left ankle. Hopefully it is not as serious as it looks.
A word about match referee Anthony Taylor. Mr Taylor has been in charge of two Spurs games so far this season. Firstly our 4-0 win at Stoke, and now this game. When are you next available please?
· See the spursometer in full.
Premier League results 14-15.01.17
Spurs 4-0 West Brom
Burnley 1-0 S'hampton
Hull 3-1 B'mouth
S'derland 1-3 Stoke
Swansea 0-4 Arsenal
Watford 0-0 M'brough
West Ham 3-0 C. Palace
Leicester 0-3 Chelsea
Everton 4-0 Man City
Man Utd 1-1 Liverpool
Premier League Table
P W D L F-A GD Pts
1. Chelsea 21 17 1 3 45-15 30 52
2. Spurs 21 13 6 2 43-14 29 45
3. Liverpool 21 13 6 2 49-24 25 45
4. Arsenal 21 13 5 3 48-22 26 44
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5. Man City 21 13 3 5 41-26 15 42
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6. Man Utd 21 11 7 3 32-20 12 40
7. Everton 21 9 6 6 32-23 9 33
8. West Brom 21 8 5 8 28-28 0 29
9. Stoke 21 7 6 8 27-33 -6 27
10. Burnley 21 8 2 11 23-31 -8 26
11. B'mouth 21 7 4 10 30-37 -7 25
12. West Ham 21 7 4 10 26-35 -9 25
13. S'hampton 21 6 6 9 19-26 -7 24
14. Watford 21 6 5 10 23-36 -13 23
15. Leicester 21 5 6 10 24-34 -10 21
16. M'brough 21 4 8 9 17-22 -5 20
17. C. Palace 21 4 4 13 30-40 -10 16
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18. Hull 21 4 4 13 20-45 -25 16
19. S'derland 21 4 3 14 20-40 -20 15
20. Swansea 21 4 3 14 23-49 -26 15
