Tottenham’s 10 best matches of 2016/17
By Ryan Wrenn
Tottenham 4 – 0 West Brom
As good as Spurs were this season, there were hints that they still had a few bugaboos yet to surmount.
Perhaps the one that loomed largest in the weeks following their win over Chelsea was their chronic inability to overcome Tony Pulis’ West Brom.
The Welshman lives and dies by a traditional brand of football, one that prioritizes physicality and no-fuss quick transitions from one end of the pitch to the other.
With Spurs’ own game so focused on exploiting opposing teams’ propensity to play the ball on the ground, Pulis’ tactics tended to mystify them. The result was three successive 1-1 draws against the Baggies.
Spurs could not countenance a draw now, not with the wind at their backs. They needed to find a way to overcome Pulis’ deceptively simple tactics.
And overcome it they did, thanks to Harry Kane and the 3-4-2-1 formation. West Brom played their usual game, but Spurs simply shrugged them off. Top heavy as they were with Danny Rose and Kyle Walker on the flanks, they broke through time and time again while also limiting their visitors to only three shots on the opposite end.
Kane would score a hat-trick of goals on the way to a 4-0 win — one that successfully snapped one of the strangest string of failures in Pochettino’s time at Spurs.