First-half blitz blows away Palace

Heung-Min Son continued his superb goalscoring form against Crystal Palace, netting for the fourth successive home league game against the Eagles in our superb 4-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The South Korean striker had previously scored at White Hart Lane, Wembley Stadium and at our new stadium in his previous match-ups with Palace – the latter the first-ever goal at our new venue – and he extended that sequence with a double as we blew the visitors away with four first half goals. His first goal of the season came just 10 minutes in before we netted twice in two minutes, Serge Aurier’s cross put through his own net by Patrick van Aanholt followed swiftly by Son volleying home our third. Erik Lamela capped an excellent team display with his second of the campaign on 42 minutes.

Palace had only conceded twice all season and hadn’t let in a first half goal this term prior to this game, but all that changed in a blistering performance from us in the first 45 minutes.

The intent was there right from the first whistle, Son testing Vicente Guaita’s handling with a low drive just 59 seconds into the game and we only had to wait 10 minutes before we took the lead. Toby Alderweireld’s deep ball was controlled on his hip by Son before he cut inside into the area and drilled a low left-foot drive in off the near post. There were chances for both sides in an open game, Harry Kane curling wide while Jordan Ayew fired straight at Hugo Lloris before we pretty much put the game to bed with two quick goals midway through the half.

With 21 minutes gone, Moussa Sissoko’s excellent ball in to Son took out the entire Palace midfield, he laid it out wide to right-back Aurier - on his first appearance of the season - who moved into the area and hit a low cross which deflected off van Aanholt and flew past Guaita. And we’d hardly finished celebrating that when Son struck again, rounding off a superb move which flowed from Lamela through Christian Eriksen to Harry Winks and wide again to Aurier, whose excellent centre from the right fell to Son at the far post and his volley beat the Palace keeper. We were almost unstoppable throughout the first half and kept Palace’s chances to a bare minimum at the other end, adding a fourth goal of our own just before the interval and again it was a free-flowing move that created it. Sissoko found Son in midfield again, he pushed the ball wide right to Kane whose exquisite first-time cross was met by Lamela 10 yards out and he slammed the ball past Guaita.

The half ended with a rare Palace chance, Wilfried Zaha firing a fierce drive straight down the throat of Lloris who gathered safely in front of his face.

There was no let-up at the start of the second period, just 14 seconds on the clock when Winks’ low 20-yard drive had Guaita scrambling to his left to tip the ball away. But Palace had a chance of their own on 50 minutes, Luka Milivojevic’s free-kick met by the head of Gary Cahill but Lloris saved before punching clear the rebound.

We continued to search for a fifth goal, Eriksen almost finding the run of Lamela with a wonderfully-disguised pass towards the six-yard box, while Son beat Guaita with an audacious chip from a very tight angle but could only find the side-netting and Aurier’s rocket from just inside the area was blocked by van Aanholt. The intensity naturally dropped as the game progressed and Palace couldn’t find a way back into the contest, Lloris comfortably saving a couple of late half-chances as we saw out the game with a minimum of fuss.

Key moment

Having gone behind in our previous two home games, scoring first was crucial but the key moment was probably our third goal, coming just two minutes after we’d doubled our advantage and putting us well in control.

It was a thing of beauty too as we carved open the visitors, the move starting with Lloris clipping a pass out to the right and ending with Son volleying home just a matter of seconds later.

Mauricio's view

A delighted Mauricio Pochettino told us afterwards: "I’m so happy. From the beginning we showed great intensity, focus and then our quality. That’s why I’m so happy. It was a very important victory for us. The feeling was that we were so aggressive, I think we surprised them because when you watched our form in previous games, we never were aggressive like today. The plan was to be aggressive, to show intensity from the beginning and all the credit to the players, they made an unbelievable start to the game."

Reaction on Spurs TV

Match data

Goals: Spurs – Son 10, 23, van Aanholt (OG) 21, Lamela 42.

Yellow cards: Spurs – Winks, Rose, Vertonghen, Eriksen; Palace – Ayew, Ward, Milivojevic.

Referee: Craig Pawson.

Venue: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Weather: Sunny, light winds, 22 degrees.

Attendance: 59,812.