Son Heung-Min scored a brace to help Tottenham to a massive 3-1 victory at home to West Ham United, moving the North London side up to fifth and three points off fourth-placed Arsenal.
The South-Korean has been criticised in recent weeks but he scored his 13th goal of the season putting him second in the goalscorers table to Mohammed Salah.
Antonio Conte gave the forward a huge hug as he came off the pitch, “We are talking about a very good player but at the same time a good person and he suffers if the performance is not good, but especially if we don’t get 3 points. This must be the first thing, to think for the team, not for ourselves.”
Spurs finally broke their win and then loss sequence having won at Brighton in midweek and then beating London rivals West Ham.
Conte’s side are starting to show patterns of play and characteristics that people would have seen in the Italian’s Chelsea and Inter Milan sides. The former Inter boss seems a lot happier than recent weeks, “I have seen great improvement about the mentality but also tactically and technically. We are starting to understand and manage 95 minutes in a different way. We are understanding the importance to win the game and manage many parts of the game.”
Spurs opened the scoring thanks to an own-goal from Kurt Zouma; Doherty played Harry Kane in down the right and the England captain’s cross aimed for Son deflected off the French defender.
Son got his first of the match to double his side’s lead after 24 minutes; Kane yet again played the South-Korean in behind and he made no mistake firing the ball over Łukasz Fabiański.
West Ham pegged Spurs back to 2-1 after 35 minutes when Said Benhrama rifled home past Hugo Lloris, after Craig Dawson flicked on Aaron Cresswell’s corner.
The Tottenham Hotspur stadium got more nervous as the minutes on the clock got closer to 90 minutes but Son’s 88th minute goal sent that crowd into raucous celebrations.
Lloris launched a kick up towards Kane, Zouma and Dawson went for the same ball but were beaten in the air by the England captain and the ball fell to Son who made no mistake slotting the ball home before letting out a huge celebration.
