MAURICIO POCHETTINO watched with relief as Spurs ended their rotten Premier League run in style.
Tottenham were looking for their first win in five matches and surprisingly, ran riot to embarrass Mark Hughes’ team.
Winning the title is no longer a possibility after their wobble but they have still needed to sort themselves out to avoid a full-on crisis.
In their previous three contests against Stoke, Spurs had won 4-0 but here, they passed that mark and could have scored even more.
Spurs led at the break through an own goal from Ryan Shawcross and after missing a number of chances, they score twice inside a minute in the second half with Heung-Min Son and Harry Kane on target.
Kane then made it 4-0 in the 65th minute and Christian Eriksen got the fifth before Shawcross pulled one back. Tottenham will now go into their midweek home game with Brighton full of confidence – although the weekend trip to Manchester City could be a bit tougher.
Former Spurs players Peter Crouch and Kevin Wimmer got decent receptions from the home crowd, who had to wait 12 minutes for a half chance but Son’s shot was straight at Jack Butland. Tottenham’s fans then celebrated the opener in the 21st minute although it was all thanks to Shawcross.
Son has to earn some credit for the way he gave Thomas Edwards a hard time, the cross came off the leg of Kurt Zouma and the ball hit Shawcross’ head with Kane breathing down his neck. With some of the pressure off, Son attempted to score one of the goals of the season with a terrific run from a deep area although his eventual shot was kept out by Butland’s foot.
The England keeper then dived to his right to push away a free-kick from Eriksen and then blocked a long-range effort from Mousa Dembele.
Kane missed a chance which nine times out of 10 he would bury and he then appealed for a penalty after a close-range effort hit Shawcross’ arm but that would have been ridiculously harsh. Dele Alli was not having the best of games and did not look sharp enough.
Even when he found the ball in a good position, the midfielder was nudged off the ball by Zouma.
Yet seven minutes into the second half, Alli received a clever pass from Harry Winks, slipped the ball through Shawcross’ legs for Son who took one touch before powering a shot into the corner.
Incredibly, it was Son’s 36th goal in 109 appearances for Tottenham, with 38 of those games coming as a sub. Many fans forget he actually scored 21 goals for the club last season. The third came a minutes later with Ben Davies playing a one-two with Eriksen and Kane rose above Erik Peters to plant a firm header past Butland. It was his 17th of the season for Spurs.
Hugo Lloris delivered a brilliant one-handed save to deny Xherdan Shaqiri and then Kane made it number 18 with a low finish from the edge of the box.
Eriksen carried on the rout with a decent finish with 15 minutes left after another good pass from Son.
Shawcross pulled one back with a header after Lloris made a mess of dealing with a corner.
From The Sun
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