Tottenham Hotspur 3 – 0 Hull City
Christian Eriksen sprang into life last night and kick-started Spurs season as they clung onto the coat-tails of the top four in the Premier League.
Or that’s how the narrative in this morning’s media ran.
It was a comfortable win and Eriksen was the star of the show, I’m not going to argue with that. And by the same token, I’m not getting over-excited by a 3 – 0 win over a relegation-threatened side. The 5 – 0 drubbing of Swansea was the same: an expected win by the sort of margin we expect to win these games by.
Eriksen was denied his hat-trick by a hair’s breadth but had the satisfaction of seeing Victor Wanyama score from the rebound of his 73rd minute free kick.
The Dane gave thanks to both Danny Rose and Kyle Walker for his goals. Enterprising wing back play has been this season’s redeeming feature and both the England lads deserved the plaudits handed out after their work last night.
Scoring an early(ish) goal put the onus on Hull to come forward and it was no surprise that we scored a second although a touch disappointing that it came nearly twenty minutes into the second half.
Equally, I’m not going to proclaim we’re back just because we’ve beaten a side which sits second bottom of the Premier League and has conceded 36 goals in the league so far. It’s not an earth-shattering victory but three solid points which might form the basis for further improvement over the remainder of the season.
Nonetheless, with City and Arsenal meeting this weekend, we’re guaranteed to be no worse than two points off the Champions League places so long as we beat Burnley on Sunday. And considering how grim things were looking a few weeks ago, that’s no bad thing.