Brighton 0-2 Tottenham Hotspur
Top four chasing Tottenham continue their win/loss pattern as they sink a toothless Brighton who have now lost six games on the bounce.
Tottenham began proceedings strongly, Harry Kane nicked the ball off Robert Sanchez and looked certain to tap the ball into an empty net only for the striker to scuff his effort wide.
A potential penalty shout for Brighton came in the 27th minute as Alexis Mac Allister had a shot blocked which then rolled back and had seemed to have brushed the arm of Rodrigo Bentancur who was in fact led on the floor so was helpless to the situation, luckily for the Uruguayan nothing was given.
Tottenham opened the scoring in the 37th minute courtesy of a Cristian Romero goal which he didn’t know an awful lot about, it came as Dejan Kulusevski had a low shot from outside the area which hit Romero and rolled past a wrong footed Sanchez.
Kulusevski had the chance to double his sides lead after snatching onto a loose Shane Duffy touch, but the Swede’s tame effort was saved by Sanchez comfortably.
Brighton certainly had a spring in their step as they looked to put on the pressure at the start of the second half forcing Tottenham back into their own half.
But for all Brighton’s early pressure it was Tottenham who doubled their lead courtesy of Kane, a quick counter attack in the 57th minute. It was Bentancur who drove through the heart of the Brighton midfield and slipped in the English front man who slotted his effort delicately in at Sanchez’s near post. This goal broke yet another record, Kane now has the most away goals in the Premier League (95).
Brighton looked to try and claw themselves back into the game but once again lacked any cutting edge in their attacks, something which has frustrated the Brighton fans all season.
In the 88th minute, as Brighton pushed more men forward, Kane was allowed to run at the defence where he forced a good stop from Sanchez when shooting from outside the area.
Tottenham came away deservedly with the three points after a professional display by which they prevented Brighton from even getting a shot on target and then of course taking their chances as they arose.
Graham Potter’s thoughts on his team’s lacklustre performance, “We lacked that little bit of quality that you need”. Something that the Brighton fans have heard a lot recently as they continue to slide down the league.
A big win for Tottenham as they bounce back from their 3-2 defeat to Manchester United in which Conte is “seeing great improvement” in his team as they “played a really good game” at a potential tricky ground.
