Perhaps unsurprisingly, the managers were at odds over the fairness of the outcome.

Bafétimbi Gomis should have done better than head a mishit Sigurdsson shot into the side netting after the interval and was made to pay when Eriksen, after Alli had been fouled again in an identical area, cracked in his coruscating second goal.īoth sides could have won it in the remaining 25 minutes, Fabianski saving from Alli and the substitute Andros Townsend before, deep into injury time, Lloris arced to touch a looping Fernández header on to the bar. This was an absorbing spectacle, Tottenham probing away and Swansea generally content to wait their moment before countering through the busy Montero. The striker’s attempt to clear resulted only in shin meeting ball, which torpedoed into the roof of Lloris’s net from a matter of feet. Shelvey’s left-wing corner was low and seemingly underhit although perhaps Kane, manning the near post, could sense Ashley Williams prowling behind him. With Tottenham on the front foot a goal from Kane should have raised few eyebrows but the manner of his intervention, four minutes afterwards, was more in keeping with his afternoon. Eriksen’s free-kick was an unusual effort – a flat, wobbling strike that found a gap to the left of the wall and seemed to deceive Fabianski as he moved to his right – but had the desired result, nestling centrally in the net. Parity arrived 11 minutes later after Federico Fernández fouled the excellent Dele Alli just outside the penalty area. Jan Vertonghen, jumping too late with Ayew, was slow to react and while the goal’s conception had been elegant its simplicity would have infuriated Pochettino. Gylfi Sigurdsson had space to drive forwards and direct the ball left to Jefferson Montero, who was similarly unhindered in checking inside and chipping over a cross that Ayew leapt to head neatly across Hugo Lloris.

Swansea had not defeated Tottenham in eight attempts since their promotion in 2011 but, stung by a winless September that saw their irrepressible early form tail off while their opponents’ gained speed, took the lead. “He’s a very professional player and I am very happy with him – not only because he scored the goals, but because of his commitment in attack and defence. “We know the quality he has in his shooting from free-kicks,” said Mauricio Pochettino of Eriksen, who scored a late winner in this fixture last season.

Had one of three efforts from open play that all flew inches wide also found the corner, it would have crowned one of this Premier League season’s better individual performances. If Eriksen’s first, which levelled the match after André Ayew’s early header, owed a little to iffy positioning from Lukasz Fabianski, his second was a marvellously clean shot that arrowed inside the post beyond the goalkeeper’s dive.

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