The image that flashed up on Harry Kane’s Instagram account after Leicester City were held to a 2-2 draw by West Ham United showed four lions about to hunt down their prey. There were no words to accompany the picture and it felt slightly tongue-in-cheek at the time but here a more ominous message was delivered to the Premier League leaders via Kane’s boots.
His 23rd and 24th goals of the season, to take Kane two ahead of Jamie Vardy – a little more salt to rub into the Leicester striker’s wounds – means Claudio Ranieri and his players can feel Tottenham Hotspur breathing down their necks.
Sandwiched between those two Kane goals, Dele Alli was doing cartwheels after scoring Tottenham’s second and that celebration summed up the mood among the 2,849 travelling Spurs fans who sense that the Premier League title is well within their grasp.
“Leicester City, we’re coming for you” reverberated around the Britannia Stadium too many times to remember, and it was easy to imagine what was going through the minds of the Foxes supporters who had tuned in at home in the hope that Stoke City might do them a favour.
Leicester’s lead at the top has been reduced to five points, their leading goalscorer Jamie Vardy faces the prospect of missing the next two matches through suspension and Tottenham are playing with the sort of belief and swagger that one normally associates with champions.
On this evidence, playing after Leicester in each of the next three matches, against West Bromwich Albion at home, Chelsea away and Southampton at home, could be more of a help than a hindrance to Spurs. It is a measure of their confidence that they approached this game, at a stadium where the other four top-five clubs had failed to win this season, as if it was not so much a question of whether they would win but how many goals they would score.
In the end they settled for four but it could easily have been half a dozen, and one of the abiding images of the evening was actually one of the few moments when something went wrong for Spurs. Alli, who plays with so much freedom that he could be running around his school playground, somehow contrived to hit the post after rounding Shay Given. Spurs were winning 2-0 at the time and Mauricio Pochettino turned into Basil Fawlty as he got down on his knees and started beating the ground.
Otherwise Alli was outstanding and it is a measure of how well the 20-year-old played that when his number was held up six minutes from time, to be replaced by Nacer Chadli, the applause broke out not just in the away end but all around the stadium. Stoke supporters are not easily impressed by the opposition but this was one of those rare occasions.
For all that Kane and Alli stole the show, there is much besides to admire about this Spurs team. Some of the one-touch football and their ability to pass their way out of tight situations was a joy to watch and it was a sumptuous ball that Christian Eriksen delivered to release Alli free for his first. Eriksen also claimed an assist for Alli’s second after Érik Lamela had squared for Kane to tap in Tottenham’s third. Kane, Lamela, Alli, Eriksen – is there a better attacking quartet in the Premier League?
Stoke, with nothing to play for, were obliging opponents and it was not a good night for Shay Given, left, two days before his 40th birthday, to make his first Premier League start for the club. The Republic of Ireland goalkeeper did nothing wrong but he was ruthlessly exposed time and again as Spurs cut through Stoke with alarming ease.
Tottenham’s passing was slick and incisive, they never looked ruffled defensively and in Kane they possess a striker capable of producing moments of ruthless brilliance.
The way in which the England international opened the scoring was a classic case in point. Linking neatly with Mousa Dembélé, Kane drifted to the left-hand side, where he loves to cut in on his right foot. Philipp Wollscheid ought to have been wise to Kane’s intentions but he was too slow to get across and the forward accepted the invitation to shoot.
There was still much to do – it was a half-chance at best – but Kane, curling the ball with wonderful precision, picked his spot beautifully.
Spurs never looked back and by the end of the evening the game had turned into an exercise in damage limitation for Stoke and an opportunity for Tottenham to send a serious statement of intent to back up the photograph that Kane had mischievously posted 24 hours earlier. “It was a bit of fun,” said Kane, grinning. Maybe for Spurs. Not for Leicester.
