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Tottenham Hotspur v Crystal Palace - Premier League
Victor Wanyama, third from right, scores for Spurs against Crystal Palace at White Hart Lane Photograph: Steven Paston/PA
Victor Wanyama, third from right, scores for Spurs against Crystal Palace at White Hart Lane Photograph: Steven Paston/PA

Victor Wanyama strikes late for Tottenham to see off Crystal Palace

This article is more than 7 years old

Sometimes the writing is on the wall from the start. There will be 18 further home league games at White Hart Lane but already the old stadium is diminished – the north-east corner gone, revealing girders, scaffolding, Portakabins, a wooden fence and a dark hut on which was scrawled the words “LIVE SUB”. Sure enough, it was the liveliness of the substitute Dele Alli that turned a game that had seemed to be slipping away from Tottenham.

He was not directly involved in the winner, nodded in from close range by Victor Wanyama with seven minutes remaining after Harry Kane had headed on Érik Lamela’s corner, but his sharp pass had initiated the move that won the corner and it was his energy and sense of purpose that dragged Tottenham out of a mire of diffidence and self-doubt.

Alli had been ill during the week and did not train on Tuesday or Wednesday but his omission was at least partly tactical as Mauricio Pochettino Kane behind Vincent Janssen. “We cannot play with 12 or 13 players,” Pochettino said. “If we want to play with two strikers it’s impossible to play with everybody. We have a lot of games ahead.”

Pochettino said he was happy with Janssen’s performance, although he did skew a glorious chance wide after 70 minutes after he had been put through by a deft flick from Alli, the substitute’s first touch. Having a squad that allows him to play two strikers is “an important option for the future”, Pochettino said.

That Spurs got the job done and found a way to win can be taken as a major positive – a reminder of how much Pochettino has done to eradicate the Spursiness that has afflicted the club for so long – but there will need to be significant improvement if Tottenham are to repeat last season’s title challenge. There was a disjointedness about them, a lack of fluidity, for which Palace are due some credit for their discipline and organisation.

“I was happy with the performance,” Pochettino said. “We created a lot of chances in the first half and was disappointed because we didn’t score. It was a game where there’s not much to correct at half-time. It was a good thing that the team fought to the end, never gave up and always believed it was possible to win.”

There was some misfortune for Palace in the goal, with Damien Delaney forced off with an ankle injury sustained in conceding the corner. He clearly wanted to stay on after receiving lengthy treatment but he would not have been allowed on the pitch for the corner anyway. James Tomkins came off the bench and, as Alan Pardew put it, was “cold”, finding himself blocked in.

“It was a sickener really,” Pardew said. “A corner when we were really being stretched because they were good at corners today. The players gave everything. There was a bit more verve and bit more industry in our play. We had a good spell and, when you come to places like Tottenham, you’ve got to score in that spell.”

That is what he hopes Christian Benteke, whose signing was not completed in time for him to play, will bring. “There’s one thing that always impressed me about him,” said Pardew. “He gets the goals you expect but every now and again he gets a rabbit out of the hat – just one moment that can change the course of a game.”

It is true, of course, that solidity plus a high-class striker can take a side a long way. The worrying aspect for Palace, though, is Pardew’s habit of leading his team into slumps from which they cannot escape. He took 1.68 points per game in his first 37 matches at Palace but is averaging 0.52 in his last 21. A sense of drift can be contagious.

If Spurs had started the season with two draws, they might have been similarly afflicted but Alli and Wanyama saved them. It may not look much yet but the foundations have been laid.

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