Tottenham Hotspur’s new manager Ange Postecoglou celebrated his first home game in charge with a 2-0 victory over Manchester United on Saturday, thanks to Pape Matar Sarr’s maiden Premier League goal and a late own goal by Lisandro Martinez.
Senegalese Sarr seized on a deflected cross in the 49th minute to shoot high into the net past Andre Onana, and Martinez then sealed his side’s fate by deflecting Ben Davies’ scuffed effort past his own keeper in the 83rd minute.
Both sides were denied by the woodwork in a free-flowing contest and United’s Bruno Fernandes wasted one of a number of gilt-edged chances for United but Postecoglou’s Tottenham deserved the three points for a vibrant second-half display.
Despite the sale of talisman and club record scorer Harry Kane to Bayern Munich on the eve of the new season, Tottenham have started the campaign positively with four points from their opening two games. United have three points.
“I would prefer if more of the 39 shots were coming from us. It’s a consequence of the way we play and where we’re at as a group at the moment,” Postecoglou said.
“We want to entertain for sure but in terms of being successful. The atmosphere was incredible today. The energy the fans created was amazing and really helped us.”
A day after Kane opened his Bundesliga account for Bayern, his old club showed there is life after the player who scored 280 goals in 435 appearances without winning a trophy.
Tottenham have scored four goals in their opening two games with defenders scoring in the 2-2 draw at Brentford and Saturday’s goals again coming from unlikely sources.
Neither the fans, nor Australian former Celtic coach Postecoglou, will care about where the goals come from in Kane’s absence, however, as Tottenham displayed the kind of high-tempo style lacking in the past few seasons.
The hosts took a while to get going and might have been punished early on as Antony fired wide for the visitors and Marcus Rashford was denied by Spurs keeper Guglielmo Vicario who went on to make several outstanding saves.
Tottenham grew into the game and Dejan Kulusevski and Sarr were both denied by Onana before Tottenham struck the woodwork twice in a matter of seconds, first when Pedro Porro’s drive smacked the crossbar, then as Sarr’s cross deflected off Luke Shaw and struck the upright.
Earlier Fernandes had somehow headed over the crossbar from point blank range as the chances racked up for both sides and it was a surprise the game reached halftime without a goal.
Tottenham went ahead shortly after the break when Kulusevski was played in down the right, and his low cross took a deflection off Martinez and Sarr arrived to bury the chance.
Antony struck the post almost immediately for United but the visitors ran out of steam and ideas, and Spurs fans were celebrating as substitute Ivan Perisic’s low pass to Davies was scuffed by the Welshman but the ball brushed off the hapless Martinez and into the United net.
United were denied a lifeline in stoppage time as Vicario made a flying save to keep out Raphael Varane’s header, having also denied Casemiro with a similar save earlier.
“We said at halftime to focus but we didn’t. We conceded a goal and we could have bounced back but we didn’t,” United manager Erik Ten Hag told reporters.
