“He’s one of our own,” sang the Tottenham fans. It is a familiar refrain to hail their goal-scorer. Except this time, right at the death, the identity of their match-winner was very different with another Harry, Harry Winks, not Harry Kane, scoring with the last touch of the match.
It felt cruel on Fulham who remain seven points adrift of safety in the bottom three with their manager Claudio Ranieri appearing distraught on the touchline as he saw his side’s first-half advantage reversed.
For Spurs, this was a performance in which they dug deep, showed their doggedness, their determination, but the fall-out may be significant. They lost Dele Alli to injury late on as he gingerly walked along the touchline holding the back of his leg, appearing to suffer a hamstring problem. Alli also appeared close to tears.
They simply cannot afford for him to be injured for any length of time given Kane is not due to return until March after suffering damaged ankle ligaments and with Heung-min Son at the Asian Cup until, probably, the beginning of February. In their absence, and with Lucas Moura not fit, it was a struggle and not least for Fernando Llorente who suffered a wretched afternoon.
The 33-year-old struck. Unfortunately it was in his own net – which means he has now scored as many league goals for Fulham as he has for Spurs, who he joined in 2017: namely one. Not just that but he spurned two good headed chances and ended the contest seemingly throwing himself to the turf in a desperate attempt to win a penalty as the ball ran away from him.
With the poverty of his performance the Spaniard gave a fresh take on the phrase ‘false nine’. He seemed a shadow of his former self.
Will Spurs turn to the transfer market? Pochettino could hardly turn to his bench, it seemed, as he brought on Eric Dier and had to re-jig his formation as his team chased the winning goal. In fact it was created by a forgotten man – it was from Georges-Kevin Nkoudou’s deep, inswinging cross that Winks stole in front of Joe Bryan to head home. Nkoudou even later tweeted a “Helloooo u remember me?” reminder and it was also Winks’ first goal since Nov 2016 when he scored in the 3-2 league victory over West Ham.
Kane scored the other two goals in that game and how Spurs miss him and Son. They are, frankly, not the same without that pair, not even close, and it will be a concerning few days before Thursday’s second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Chelsea. Without Alli, how will Spurs cope?
He scored here also, with another close-range header early in the second-half, which owed much to Fulham’s perennially poor defending. For some reason Tim Ream – who was woeful – wafted out a leg at an attempted clearance and allowed the ball to run to Christian Eriksen who picked out Alli with a pinpoint cross. Denis Odoi was also caught out and Alli planted his header past goalkeeper Sergio Rici.
It had been Fulham’s first-half. They went in front when Ream attempted to flick on a corner, ahead of Alli and Kieran Trippier, and the ball struck Llorente and diverted past Hugo Lloris. Quite what Llorente was trying to do was unclear but it appeared to come off his calf as he stuck out a leg with no Fulham player close to him.
Llorente was denied the opportunity to quickly redeem himself after he stole in front of Ream to meet Jan Vertonghen’s cross only for Rico to push out his header. In fact the ball came off Llorente’s shoulder and he had to do better.
At the other end and Ryan Babel should have also done better when he met Cyrus Christie’s cross, sending a header over the cross-bar. It was the second good chance that Babel had spurned.
On his debut, signed until the end of the season from Turkish club Besiktas, the Dutch international should have claimed the lead before Fulham did score in what was his first Premier League game since 2010. The former Liverpool forward ran on to Aleksandar Mitrovic’s header and out-muscled Davinson Sanchez – no mean feat – before forcing a fine one-handed save from Lloris.
For all of Spurs’ dominance of possession it was Fulham who threatened again with Babel breaking down the left before Andre Schurrle struck a superb volley back across goal that was smartly beaten out by Lloris. The rebound fell to Mitrovic who headed home but was rightly ruled offside.
How Fulham would rue their misses. Once Spurs were level, it was only they who threatened but they were denied as Maxime Le Marchand threw himself to block Eriksen’s goal-bound effort and Odoi Odoi diverted Danny Rose’s shot, after he cut in from the left, with the ball ricocheting over off the bar.
Spurs earned a free-kick, after a trip on Rose, with Eriksen picking out Llorente inside the six-yard area who somehow glanced his header past the far post. It was another chance that, surely, had to be taken and it appeared the to be their last opportunity. Until Winks struck. Spurs had the precious points – but at what price?