BBC SPORT . 31 mins GOAL - Tottenham 3-0 Burnley Son Heung-min *Clapping emoji* Sensational Son, sensational. Think Diego Maradona. Think George Weah. Think Lionel Messi. The Spurs forward picks the ball up on the EDGE OF HIS OWN AREA and then sticks on the afterburners to slalom through the Burnley defence, laving Claret shirts chasing him like rats following the Pied Piper. Everything opens up for him, suddenly the goal is right in front of him. And he keeps his cool to slot in the third from 15 yards.
100% should be goal of the season, a goal like that can’t be scored by 99% of professional players where as the long range hit and hopes can be scored by anyone really.
Very notable VAR was unable to ruin the fans celebration for Sonny's goal as they were still cheering and applauding all the way through the 90 seconds that it took for VAR to confirm the goal
Offside...they ruled out an Jan goal in 2015 or 16 for offside even though he got the ball 10 yards inside our half before running through and scoring. One of the, if not THE worst offside decision ever yet it is hardly remembered.
Mourinho programming the journalists. Defensive process, rather than the defence. He's right, too. Harry Kane won't play in Munich. Good.
Looking at the highlights, the single most striking difference is the reintroduction of counter attacking at real pace. It's hard to understand why Mauricio Pochettino's game plan became to slow our attacks and play so narrow, given that in Sonny and Lucas we have real quality, pace and width. Unlike a number of recent games against Burnley, we opened them up by using that pace and width. Teams are going to find it a lot harder to sit narrow and deep if we continue to play like that. The next task is to properly integrate Lo Celso and Ndombele to be regular starters and find a role for Sessegnon's talents, probably in giving Sonny a bit more rest than he's had in recent seasons? I've seen Mourinho say how much he likes the squad that he inherited and he's damn right. There's an enormous amount of talent in it and much of it is tailor made to play the kind of football that made him a top manager. We're short of a couple of top notch full backs and a defensive midfielder but if we can find some funds, we can certainly improve on what we have. Next test - can we go to Wolves, set up better and beat a team in the top half?
The thing with Poch's tactics is we played slow to try and open up a channel for somebody to break through at pace, at which point either Dembele/Sissoko/Ndombele would bulldoze through to create even more space or Eriksen/Winks/Ndombele would play a pass into those channels to get us moving - but that doesn't work against busparquet and can be countered to a reasonable degree by pressing in the right area, especially as the asymmetrical full backs made it obvious where the out ball was so that could just as easily be countered
We have seen the best and worst of whatever Jose seems to have in mind. What IMHO is missing is an MF pair who can at least hold on to the ball when CM gets frantic. The games against Wolves (whose CM can hold the ball, counter-attacking) and Chelsky (been playing a decent attacking game) will now be important measures of this regime.
To be fair, Jose should know how to cope with busparquet because he will have seen how other teams undo his busparquet in the past. I fear our difficulty will now be teams that press us. Our defence will be key.
Pass map time... please log in to view this image ...seriously? Eric Dier actually completing passes?
Pace troubles any defence. Defenders simply do not like players like Son and Lucas running at them. So, why not use that? We are moving the ball with far more pace generally than we were in Poch’s last days.
I have a personal view: that a key factor in today's performance was the fact that we played the right way round! At the old WHL we used to attack the Park Lane first half. At our new stadium we've been doing that second half. I am, of course, prejudiced - because I like them playing towards me in the Paxton in the second half. But I suspect the players found it inspiring to be playing towards that Wall of Sound from kick-off. And we certainly came flying out of the blocks for a change. Two goals in (was it?) nine minutes! Anyway, them's my thoughts. Let's keep it that way round for a few games, to test out my theory. ps We must put a massive barbed wire fence up around Sonny - to keep out all those Real, Barça, PSG etc scouts who are checking their wallets, licking their lips, and clearing their throats at this very moment. NOT FOR SALE NOT NOHOW!!! (And what a nice twist of fate that, on the day when Moura and Son showed the difference speed makes on the flanks, we welcomed Aaron Lennon back to the Lane [and what a welcome, too!] My mind floated back to the days of Bale & Lennon.....).