Micky van de Ven was named Tottenham’s player of the season this week, and it is for moments like his winner against Burnley here.
No, Van de Ven was not signed to score late goals to relegate opponents and keep his own team’s faint Champions League hopes alive. But he has shown this season that there is more to his game than his extraordinary recovery pace.
Indeed, he looked like a seasoned striker as he turned what would have been an ugly 1-1 draw into a 2-1 win that Spurs deserved on the balance of play but which could so easily never have materialised.
Van de Ven took the ball in his stride, curled past Dara O’Shea off balance, and so there does remain a sliver of hope that Ange Postecoglou’s side can secure Champions League football for themselves next season, pipping Aston Villa into fourth place at the last.
Postecoglou accepted as much on Friday, before admitting that his side are not, in any case, a Champions League team yet.
And while the headline was victory and the winning goal a superb one, there were certainly details of this performance that will have disappointed the Tottenham manager.
Cristian Romero and Yves Bissouma — the latter lively throughout — were guilty of rushing passes into midfield which were then seized upon by a Burnley side whose midfield duo of Sander Berge and Josh Cullen were allowed more time on the ball than Spurs ought to have afforded them.
Berge took full advantage of one of those such moments, skipping past a number of Tottenham player and feeding Jacob Bruun Larsen to fire Burnley into a lead that few inside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium saw coming.
James Maddison returned to the starting line-up after two matches on the bench and, despite occasional moments which demonstrated his undeniable quality, still appeared to lack his early-season confidence. The same was true of fellow attackers Heung-min Son, Dejan Kulusevski and Brennan Johnson. Kulusevski was too far out wide to affect play.
And so it again fell to others to ignite the spark and breach Arijanet Muric’s net. Pedro Porro cantered forward and smashed past Muric for Tottenham’s equalier, before Van de Ven tucked past him coolly with eight minutes left to play.
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Villa will have suffered a considerable fall from grace if they lose hold of that fourth Champions League spot from here, but Tottenham can only win and hope. They did all they could here.
