Down the years Tottenham fans have enjoyed some fantastic moments both home and away, and in the current void with zero football being played in England, we’re taking a look back through the archives at some big wins from years gone by that some fans may have forgotten about.
To start with, we’re going to ease you all in with a game that was played at White Hart Lane around four and a half years ago. This one saw Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs host Manuel Pellegrini’s Manchester City in the 2015/16 season, and whilst we will eventually delve deeper into the history books and go further back, for now, we’re staying fairly recent.
Without further ado, let’s start at the start:
This was a game, very early in the season, where many Tottenham fans were given a lot of belief ahead of what would be an incredible season for the Lilywhites. Forgetting the end of season 5-1 defeat to Newcastle, this was a campaign that delivered a top-four finish and some massive moments, including this win.
The start of this season was a slow one. After losing 1-0 at Old Trafford on the opening day and then drawing the next three league games against Stoke, Leicester and Sunderland, finally, some momentum was built up when 1-0 league wins against Sunderland and Crystal Palace were separated by a 3-1 Europa League group stage win against Qarabag (Transfermarkt).
For Manchester City, the start of the season had been explosive. Five Premier League games at the start of the season were won with ease, not conceding even once on their way to 15 points, but from there, things went downhill. Back-to-back 2-1 home losses against Juventus in Europe and West Ham in the league were followed up by a 4-1 League Cup win at Sunderland, and then they travelled to Spurs (Transfermarkt).
One of the key narratives being talked about going into this game was that surrounding Harry Kane. The Tottenham man went into the 15/16 campaign off the back of scoring a whopping 31 goals in all competitions the previous season (Transfermarkt), but with eight games played before this City clash, Kane was yet to get off the mark (Transfermarkt)
The game itself started and was a tetchy affair at first. City were without goalkeeper Joe Hart and captain Vincent Kompany, but that didn’t stop them taking the lead through Kevin De Bruyne on the counter-attack after 25 minutes, but Spurs would soon click into gear before too long.
On the stroke of half-time, the Lilywhites got their equaliser, and it came through a superb 25-yard strike from none other than Eric Dier, rifling in from holding midfield to have the score at 1-1 on half-time, and when the game restarted the Lilywhites never looked back.
In his debut season after making an £11.4m move from Atletico Madrid (The Guardian), Toby Alderweireld bagged his first Spurs goal five minutes after the break, capitalising on a Willy Caballero mistake to head home and turn the game on its head.
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After that, it was all Spurs. The Lilywhites’ doubled their lead when Harry Kane, despite his goal drought and endless cries from opposition fans that he’s just a one-season wonder, scored after a Christian Eriksen free-kick struck the crossbar, and soon things would only get even better for Pochettino and co.
At 3-1, and with very little Manchester City threat of getting back into the game, Erik Lamela stepped up on 79 minutes and scored a fantastic solo goal. After previously whipping in the free-kick that Alderweireld had scored from, Lamela’s goal was an incredible display of what he as capable of, and the Argentine was certainly a worthy winner of the man of the match award (BBC).
After this game Spurs went four games without a win, but this was a result that will live very long in the memory, and it was the first result of the Lilywhites’ season that will go down in the memory as Pochettino started to show what he could do at Tottenham, helping the north Londoners to a 3rd placed finish.