BEVERLY HILLS, May 08, (THEWILL) – If English Premier League north London club Tottenham Hotspur still harboured faint hopes of making the tight top four contest at the summit of the Premiership this season, it all went out without as much as a whimper in Saturday afternoon’s lunch fixture of the EPL, where they were well beaten by Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United.
The visitors may feel hard done by the video assistant referee (VAR) decisions that struck off Harry Kane’s goals but Stuart Dallas, Patrick Bamford and Rodrigo all found the back of the net at Elland Road to condemn Spurs to a 3-1 defeat after Heung-min Son had drawn them level in the 25th minute.
The result means Spurs are stuck in sixth place with 56 points from 35 games. That leaves them five points behind fourth-placed Chelsea who play runaway leaders Manchester City later on Saturday and, if they win, could widen the gap while jumping over Leicester to third, after the Foxes lost to Newcastle United on Friday.
For Leeds, victory carried them two places up to ninth on 50 points, which is admirable for their solid run this season after getting promotion to the premiership from the Championship only last year. They continued their pattern of playing with a high press while disrupting the midfield and Spurs temporal manager, Ryan Mason, had no answers for that.
It could also be argued that Mason got the tactics wrong from the very beginning with no apparent tactics to counter the high press or a player to keep the midfield from falling apart. It is no point arguing that these are the types of matches more fitting to Jose Mourinho’s tactics and he could have done a much better job. In fact, Mourinho’s Spurs beat Leeds 3-0 in the first tie of the season at the Tottenham Stadium by keeping the midfield and using the counter.
It hurt that Spurs’ striker Harry Kane had two goals disallowed for offside. The tone of the game could have changed and the result as well had one or both goals been allowed to stand but, VAR struck both out.
To their credit, Tottenham created chances to level the scores and possibly win the match but they missed several of them. Their profligacy in front of goal was punished when late substitute Rodrigo sealed victory for Leeds when he capped a fast break with a clinical first-time shot in the 84th minute for Leeds third of the game, which ended the match as a contest.
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Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
