Swansea City vs Tottenham report: Christian Eriksen's last-minute larceny leaves Monk sickened by wasteful Swansea
Swansea 1 Tottenham 2
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Your support makes all the difference.Christian Eriksen was Tottenham’s late hero again as his last-gasp goal stole all three points in a feisty battle here today.
Spurs had led through Harry Kane’s early header but were pegged back by Wilfried Bony’s eighth goal of the season after sustained Swansea pressure. But Eriksen, who had snatched a win for Mauricio Pochettino’s side against Hull last month, worked the room to fire low into the left-hand corner with barely a minute of the 90 remaining.
Once again there was little sign of fluency from stuttering Spurs, but Pochettino will not care one jot as they leapfrogged above Swansea in the table and moved to within two points of rivals Arsenal.
He said: “In football sometimes you deserve things, sometimes not, but you need to score and I think we deserved the win because we scored. We are moving in the right way, when you arrive at a new club with different players you always need time to put your ideas over.
“We have been playing well, I am happy with the players and the character we showed to win.”
The Swansea manager Garry Monk, meanwhile, was left bemoaning the errors that ensured his side got nothing from a game they dominated for large parts.
Swansea had lost just once on home turf all season, but they were uncharacteristically sluggish during the opening exchanges and it cost them.
They had already received one warning when Neil Taylor barely got up in time to impede Roberto Soldado’s near-post header, but there was no let-off when Kane towered above Angel Rangel at the next corner to beat goalkeeper Gerhard Tremmel.
It was the first time Swansea conceded a goal in the opening 15 minutes of any game this season, and it rocked them. But slowly they settled.
Bony had already had one effort saved by Hugo Lloris when Jefferson Montero’s driving run played the striker in on goal, only for former Swansea man Ben Davies to make a tremendous covering challenge to deny his old team-mate.
The visitors suffered a scare when the hapless Federico Fazio took down Gylfi Sigurdsson, facing Tottenham for the first time since his summer move back to south Wales, in the box just as the midfielder got away a shot.
Fazio was caught out again when Sigurdsson’s superb pass picked out Bony, but Lloris brilliantly stuck out a leg to make the save, not knowing the offside flag was already up.
The game was becoming increasingly niggly as Spurs tried to stem the tide and matters threatened to boil over after Erik Lamela caught Montero with an elbow as the Ecuador winger closed down on the Argentine.
Referee Robert Madley took no action on that occasion, but booked Jan Vertonghen for a studs first challenge on Wayne Routledge.
Kane then blotted his copybook. The striker tumbled over his own heels inside the box but appealed to the officials for a penalty, to the fury of Monk, who exchanged words with counterpart Pochettino on the touchline.
Fazio blocked a goalbound Bony shot just before the break as tempers briefly settled, before Taylor reacted angrily when he was also caught by an arm from Lamela.
But Swansea frustrations were lifted just three minutes into the second half. Routledge got in behind Davies and, after Fazio had again blocked Bony’s shot, the striker slotted home the rebound for his 20th Premier League goal of 2014.
The hosts pushed on in search of a quick second and Bony headed straight at Lloris from Taylor’s cross, with Ki Sung-yueng failing to convert from a short corner routine.
Spurs, once Pochettino had sent on Mousa Dembélé for the ineffectual Soldado, began to find a foothold.
Kane came within a whisker of restoring their lead, glancing Eriksen’s corner narrowly wide of the far post.
Eriksen almost produced a stunner as Tremmel barely kept out a dipping shot, but the Dane made no mistake when Jazz Richards failed to clear Swansea’s lines. He feinted to his right and fired past Ashley Williams and an unsighted Tremmel to snatch the three points and a sixth-straight Premier League win over Swansea.
“It is sickening, two individual errors have cost us and we were not clinical enough,” said Monk.
“We could have scored a number of goals and didn’t. We gifted them the first goal and it took us time to settle but the second half was one-way traffic. That is when you have to kill people, to end teams.
“If it had been a boxing match would have been called off but we did not take chances and we were punished.”
Monk refused to heavily criticise Madley’s failure to take action against Lamela, or to award a penalty for Fazio’s challenge on Sigurdsson.
The Swansea manager, who has not been shy in taking referees to task this term, admitted he had not agreed with the decisions, but added: “That was not the reason we lost the game.”
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