Tottenham Hotspur‘s best start to the Premier League in more than 60 years continued with a 2-0 victory over Fulham at home on Monday. This victory put them two points clear at the summit of the league.
A seventh victory in nine league games was achieved by James Maddison’s first home goal for the team and captain Son Heung-Min’s seventh league goal of the year.
In the 36th minute, Son curled a right-foot attempt into the top corner. A moment later, in the 54th, he set up playmaker Maddison for a goal with a cool finish.
Spurs are unbeaten in the league under new manager Ange Postecoglou, with 23 points, two more than local rivals Arsenal and champion Manchester City. They have the opportunity to advance five places when they visit Crystal Palace on Friday.
Despite a few late chances as Tottenham eased off, Fulham was disappointing and now sits in 13th place with 11 points.
The sole setback to Postecoglou’s stellar start in north London came when the west London team defeated Tottenham on penalties in the League Cup, making the victory all the more sweet.
After being forced to resign from Celtic and take over as manager, Postecoglou has made the best start of any new manager in the Premier League.
The Australian was not quite satisfied with his team’s performance even if they won again.
“It was a good result because Fulham are a tough team to break down,” Postecoglou told Sky Sports. “The second half wasn’t great and we didn’t play anywhere near the levels we can, we were wasteful.
“You have to respect the game and if you are off it a little bit it can drag you down. We took a few liberties which I wasn’t very happy with. It was our worst 45 minutes with the ball.”
Spurs’ forward play was evident early on as they created opportunities, with Son being turned away by Fulham’s former Arsenal goalkeeper Bernd Leno.
Additionally, Richarlison side-footed wide following a sweeping play, and defender Micky van de Van curled an opportunity over the crossbar.
Guglielmo Vicario made a fantastic save to deny Joao Palhinha, Fulham’s best chance of the first half.
After a clumsy pass from Calvin Bassey out of defense left Spurs exposed, the visitors gave the team a helping hand to break the tie when Richarlison found Son, who slipped to his right before curling the ball past Leno.
As he has been all season since joining from Leicester City during the offseason, Maddison was once again at the center of a lot of Tottenham’s best efforts, and he was shortly rewarded.
After more careless Fulham defense, Son rolled the ball to the England international, and Maddison extended his body and guided a beautiful low finish past Leno.
Madison, Son, and Richarlison were all replaced in the second half of the game on Friday. Fulham missed a number of late chances to score, but Tottenham lost concentration and might have paid the price.
“In the second half we ramped the pressure up a bit but in the end we come away with nothing,” said Fulham boss Marco Silva, who has never enjoyed a Premier League win over Spurs. “Maybe unfortunate to not score one or two and then we are talking about a different result.”
