LONDON, Dec 26 (Reuters) - TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 5 BOURNEMOUTH 0
Tottenham Hotspur delivered a Boxing Day knockout to Bournemouth with a 5-0 win in the Premier League on Wednesday to move them up to second in the standings.
Having thrashed Everton 6-2 in their last match, it took only 16 minutes before Spurs were scoring again at Wembley. Christian Eriksen was played in by Kyle Walker-Peters and his shot from 25 yards took a big deflection off Bournemouth defender Jefferson Lerma to beat Asmir Begovic in goal.
The home side were celebrating again less than 10 minutes later when Son Heung-min scored his sixth goal of the month with a cool low finish from the edge of the area.
Walker-Peters had done well before giving the ball to Son for the second and the young full back got his third assist of the afternoon 10 minutes before halftime. This time, the English defender ran in behind the visiting defence and pulled the ball back for Lucas Moura to make it 3-0.
Harry Kane compounded Bournemouth's misery after the break with his 12th league goal of the season. The England captain perfectly meeting an Eriksen ball over the top on the volley, before Son poked in his second and Spurs' fifth with 20 minutes still to play.
With the win and Manchester City's defeat at Leicester City, Mauricio Pochettino's side moved up to second in the standings and six points behind leaders Liverpool. However, the Argentine was refusing to get ahead of himself by looking at the table.
"We are in a very good position, but Liverpool and Manchester City are the real contenders," he told BBC Sport.
"It is one thing to be a point above them, but Manchester City are the reigning champions and Liverpool are doing fantastic. We are between them and there is still a lot of work to do...
"We are only halfway to the end of the season, we need to replicate the same second-half of the season. It is up to us, if we show the same quality and same belief and behave in the way we behave, then maybe at the end of the season we can talk in the way that maybe we fight for big things."
Bournemouth slipped down to 11th and coach Eddie Howe lamented that his side did not have any festive fortune.
"It was a tough one. One of those days every shot they had went in, every shot we had didn't," he said.
"You have to admire qualities they have. But it is disappointing we created so many opportunities ourselves, if we had got one back might be different but (it is a) disappointing day."
(Reporting by Christian Radnedge, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
