Harry Kane headed in a late winner for his 150th Premier League goal as Tottenham Hotspur triumphed 1-0 at West Bromwich Albion. This one was his eighth goal in his eight Premier League appearances against West Brom, one of nine sides he averages a goal-per-game or better against in the competition.
Kane’s seventh goal this season puts Spurs top of the table on 17 points, but Leicester City and Liverpool can go above them if they beat Wolverhampton Wanderers and Manchester City respectively. West Brom remain winless in 18th place.
Jose Mourinho made one change to the starting XI from the last Premier League match against Brighton as Bale made his first league start since returning to the Club. He replaced Erik Lamela. There were five changes to the team that started against Ludogorets in Europa League action on Thursday night with Lloris, Reguilon, the superb Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Ndombele and Son all back in. Dier started the match – his 250th Spurs appearance.
Slaven Bilić switched formation and made three changes to the team that were defeated at Fulham, with Kyle Bartley, Dara O’Shea and Callum Robinson replacing Branislav Ivanović, Matheus Pereira and Grady Diangana.
Both teams had first-half chances, the best of which fell to Son Heung-min, whose close-range shot was blocked. West Brom nearly opened the scoring when Callum Robinson’s floated cross was headed off the line by Eric Dier.
The hosts’ Conor Gallagher clipped a post from long range and Darnell Furlong headed at Hugo Lloris, before Giovani Lo Celso missed a big chance at the other end moments after coming on.
Spurs ramped up the pressure and after Carlos Vinicius was superbly denied by Sam Johnstone, Kane flicked Matt Doherty’s 88th-minute cross beyond West Brom’s goalkeeper to secure the victory.
Tottenham’s unbeaten run now stands at seven in the Premier League, the current longest run in the competition. They’ve won five and drawn two of those since losing to Everton on the opening day.
Today’s victory marks only the fourth time in Spurs history they have won four opening away games in a league campaign, doing so in 1949/50 when winning the second tier, 1960/61 when winning the First Division title and in 2017/18 (finished third in the Premier League).
What Next ?
- West Brom will travel to Manchester to take on United on 21st November at Old Trafford
- Spurs will host Manchester City on 21st November
Match Stats:
| West Bromwich Albion | Tottenham Hotspur | |
|---|---|---|
| 41.1 | Possession % | 58.9 |
| 2 | Shots on target | 5 |
| 12 | Shots | 19 |
| 546 | Touches | 715 |
| 341 | Passes | 510 |
| 19 | Tackles | 16 |
| 11 | Clearances | 33 |
| 9 | Corners | 6 |
| 1 | Offsides | 1 |
| 1 | Yellow cards | 0 |
| 17 | Fouls conceded | 12 |
Post-Match reactions :
Jose Mourinho :
“It was one of those matches with all the ingredients to lose a couple of points – difficult opponents, they want to stop you, they analyse you, they see where you are strong, they try to close every possible door, and they did it. Apart from that, they also had strategy in relation to the time, in relation to the intensity – they tried everything, fought really hard, and the good thing was that we always tried.
“Even being difficult, it was not a game where it had lots of chances, but a game where you start pushing, pushing, pushing and you feel the possible is coming. Then the moment arrived where I felt it’s time to bring Vinicius, to change the structure a little, to give them a different problem than they had until then. With Vinicius, Harry became a little more free and he got that space to score the winning goal.”
