History for defensive goalscoring trio?

A very rare phenomenon occurred in our 5-1 win over Newcastle United on Sunday afternoon as three of our defenders found the back of the net.

Having fallen behind to a Fabian Schar free-kick on 39 minutes, Welsh left centre-back Ben Davies brought us back level four minutes later, wing-back Matt Doherty then put us ahead three minutes into the second half before our roving defender on the other flank, Emerson Royal, added our fourth, following Heung-Min Son’s 54^th-minute strike. Steven Bergwijn then wrapped up the scoring with eight minutes remaining.

To have three defenders on target in the same match is a first for us in the Premier League era and, having looked through the Club’s archives and records, it appears it may be the first time it has happened in our history.

Of course, there has been numerous times when two defenders have struck for us in the same game. You only have to look back to our final game of the 2016/17 season when we trounced Hull City 7-1 at the KC Stadium – Toby Alderweireld and Ben were on target that day. We also saw the spectacle of a duo of defenders registering as we defeated West Ham 4-1 in November, 2015, with Alderweireld and Kyle Walker on target.

Even more iconic examples include Younes Kaboul and Pascal Chimbonda’s goals in our thrilling 4-4 draw with Aston Villa on our 125^th-anniversary in October, 2007, and Benoit Assou-Ekotto and Sebastian Bassong’s efforts to seal a 2-1 home win over Liverpool at the start of the 2008/09 season. But, for three defenders to score for us in the same match is something we do not believe has happened since we entered the Football League way back in 1908.

It must be noted though that the task of going through archives and researching these rare and niche feats is one that can be fraught with difficulties due to data, on occasion, being inaccurate or incomplete so, before we can be certain of whether this moment is the first of its kind for us, we are reaching out to you, our supporters, for your help.

We are well aware of just how knowledgeable our fan base is when it comes to our storied past, so we would like you to get in contact with us if you are aware of any other competitive game in our history in which three of our defenders have scored for us.

You can email us at programme@tottenhamhotspur.com.