Premier League, Tottenham-Nottingham Forest 3-1: brace from Kane and Richarlison

“Come on!!”. Antonio Conte was celebrating as if he hadn’t spent the last few weeks at home recovering from surgery when Son scored the third goal in the 62nd minute as Tottenham knocked out Nottingham Forest 3-1. It’s a liberating exultation, of a coach back in his element, the field, and back to winning after 10 days of disappointments. It’s the goal that shakes the Tottenham Stadium, flat for the entire game, as if the 61,460 fans who came to watch the Premier League 27th round match were too angry to be heard. It’s a victory, the first after three disappointing knockouts, which doesn’t change the situation: at Tottenham there is an air of the end of the empire, clearly perceptible even in what should be a day of celebration for a victory that brings the margin over Liverpool to 6 points for fourth place.

NO PARTY

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Only the players on the pitch made the party. Harry Kane, the usual phenomenon who scored twice in the first half (in the 19th minute with a header and in the 35th minute from a penalty) bringing his tally of goals this season in the Premier League to 20. Richarlison, owner even after Wednesday’s anti-Conte outburst and probably author of his best performance of the year in the league, in which after a goal disallowed by the Var he obtained the 2-0 penalty and stubbornly churned out the assist from the 3-0. The public followed as if all this passed before their eyes, only cheering for the goals, waking up a little more after the third goal. The 3,000 Forest fans who thronged where the Milan fans celebrated qualifying for the quarter-finals of the Champions League on Wednesday were often much more numerous than the 58,000 seated elsewhere. It is that finite patience that Conte had spoken of on the eve of which “is not good for the team”, that atmosphere of the end of the empire, of a cycle that is about to close, because everyone knows that Antonio, acclaimed by the fans up until a month ago as the real champion of this team and now completely ignored, he will leave at the end of the season and many are wondering if it shouldn’t be the case to send him away sooner.

ANTONIO

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It is Daniel Levy, sitting in the stands next to Fulham patron Shahid Khan, who has to make that decision together with Paratici: part of the fans who would like Mauricio Pochettino to return immediately, even immediately giving him two months of early departure compared to next season. However, Conte has no intention of giving up and he has proved it once again. He asked his team for a strong reaction, he lined up Richarlison as starter who had also criticized him after his elimination with Milan, he showed that dominant and attacking kick that Tottenham fans accuse him of not knowing how to do. He was furious on the bench, insensitive to the perceived temperature of 3 degrees, to his still precarious physical conditions after a convalescence from which he returned less than a week ago: he was the usual caged lion, busy giving directions to his team, getting hear with the referee when he deemed it necessary. To rejoice, embracing Stellini, when Son scored that 3-0 goal. As if what happens at the end of the season doesn’t matter to him, as if pursuing fourth place with Tottenham, the only goal left after elimination from the Champions League, was worth as much as a Scudetto. Conte has no intention of giving up, even if the fans have stopped idolizing him, even if the club is thinking about the future without him. And now that he has only one game a week to play, with a squad better equipped for a commitment of this type, he’s ready for a miracle like last season’s.

THE MATCH

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The Tottenham Stadium wakes up from its torpor when Richarlison hits the target in the 3′, but it is as if the fact that the Var cancels what would have been the Brazilian’s first goal in the Premier League causes the Spurs people to fall back into their greyness. A flight from Kane was needed to wake him up: in the 19th minute the striker headed in a cross from Porro and released ahead of Aurier. Forest does nothing, Tottenham controls the game even if their fans rarely make themselves heard and in the 35th minute they double their lead: Kane always signs it, “One of our one” (one of us) as his fans sing, this time he scored from a penalty awarded for a foul by Worrall on Richarlison. The guests restarted more aggressively, but Tottenham scored again: this time with Son, who in the 62nd minute collected a nice cross from the inspired Richarlison in the middle of the area and sent in. Forest wanted to at least try, forcing Forster to make a couple of great saves and scored with Worrall’s header in the 81st minute. In the 94th minute Ayew could make it 3-2 from the penalty spot (hands of Kulusevski seen from the Var), but Forster makes his best save.