Lucas lauds free-kick expertise

Lucas Moura highlighted the wealth of set-piece specialists in the squad following our victory over Fulham on Saturday.

The Brazilian schemer revealed that practice made perfect when Kieran Trippier whipped in a sensational free-kick to give us the lead for the second time in our 3-1 win against the Cottagers.

After Lucas himself pinged in a fine set piece in our recent pre-season friendly in Girona and with Christian Eriksen also capable of finding the target from range – the Dane having scored six of his 41 league goals for us from a set-piece situation – there might be quite a queue forming next time we have a dead-ball opportunity!

“What a goal that was by Kieran!” said Lucas. “We had a lot of free-kick training on Friday and Kieran shot very well so I’m happy for him. He scored a great goal at the World Cup too.

“It’s good for the team because now we have a lot of players who can take free-kicks and score. I scored against Girona, so if someone is tired another player can step up.”

Lucas struck his first Premier League goal to open our account at Wembley on Saturday and dedicated his sublime effort to his family.

“I’m so happy for this moment and for helping the team to win,” said the 26-year-old. “It’s been a dream for me to play in the Premier League and now I’ve just scored my first goal at Wembley. All my family are here and I’m delighted because it was the first goal for my son. I just want to thank all of my team-mates – I’m very proud of them.

“I thought we had control of the game. It was a difficult game because they have strong, quick players but we dominated and found the goals. We did our jobs, we are very strong and now we need to continue like this.”