Kane, Spurs Handle Their Business versus Huddersfield Town

Spurs Gameplan

From the off, however, not having an attacker behind supporting Kane clearly demonstrated a lack of linkage between the back 7 and the front three. As the early minutes wore on, it became more apparent Tottenham were content to sit back and let Huddersfield have possession, and then try to link up with longer balls over the top and to feet with the front three. Where is Harry Winks when you need him?

Kane Spurs 1^st half

Pochettino’s tactics began paying off at about the 10 minute mark as Kane had his first of a few mini-breakaway attempts on the day. A good save from Jonas Lossl kept Spurs off the board however.

Then at 16 minutes Vertongen went down. He jogged off the pitch and played the rest of the half, only to be subbed at halftime. Let’s hope he is not too hurt.

Near the 20-minute point Son found himself in space, only to slice the left footed shot way over the ball. Despite giving up most of the possession at that point, Spurs had two decent chances and more importantly, Son, Kane, and Lucas were all finding some space to run into in the final third.

The counter-attacking approach finally paid dividends when Kane headed home a pin-point cross from Trippier at the 25^th minute. Lucas deserves a lot of credit for that goal as well, doing a lot of running, getting fouled in the box, only to quickly get to his feet and play the ball back to Tripps for his cross to Kane.

Kane was first off of the ground and last to land as he hung like Michael Jordan, yes I’m that old, to head home the opener. With the goal Kane passed Jermaine Defoe for 5^th on the all-time Spurs goal list.

Gazzaniga was finally tested with an unsighted long-range missile at about 31 minutes, but had a strong arm to be up to the task. Shortly after his big save, a one-two between Son and Danny Rose, led to the later being felled in the box and a Spurs penalty.

First the first time all season, Kane went right, the keeper went left, 2-0 Spurs!

Up 2-0 40 minutes into the game, it seemed Spurs were finally getting into a rhythm with the ball and Dier kicks it out of play. From here to the end of the half and frankly for the rest of the game, things started to get chippy.

Billing, the long throw specialist, was lucky not to get a card for a cynical foul against Kane in the midfield running up his back, then 30 seconds later we saw the first yellow card as Kane was hacked to the ground by Zanka.

After 5 minutes of stoppage time for two first-half injuries, the whistle blew, and Spurs went in up 2-0.