Tottenham Hotspur 4 (Son 10,21, Van Aanholt o.g. 21, Lamela 42) v Crystal Palace 0, played at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, attendance 59,812, on 14 September 2019.
Mauricio Pochettino asked for a response from his team after their poor showing against Newcastle United, and he got it! Fast, fluid and fun to watch football by Spurs blew Palace away in the first quarter. Son Heung-Min, yet he says regretfully to score a Premier League hat-trick let alone a derby one, lead the charge. His 2 goals came either side of Van Aanholt’s deflection of Serge Aurier’s close range cross, with Eric Lamela stroking home Harry Kane’s precise cross also from the right. Palace offered little in reply and Spurs kept their clean sheet in the second half. Palace have now lost 9 consecutive Premier League games to Spurs, and only won 3 of the last 21, scoring a mere 8 goals and conceding 29.
What of Watford whom we suggested could be included in this season’s P.L. London derbies? Well their 2 – 2 draw at Vicarage Road gave them their second point of the season, and an improvement on their 1 – 3 home defeat by West ham United on 24 August. Aubameyang’s two first half goals (21 and 32 minutes) were cancelled out by one from Cleverley (53), which VAR would have disallowed if applied to restarts in play, and Pereyra’s late (81) penalty.
Finally my apologies to Chelsea’s Ross Barkley whom I did not include as appearing in an England shirt last week. In the next P.L. London derby on 5 October Palace are away againat West Ham’s London Stadium but we will be with you on 27 September.
Enjoy your football, PLDs.