Tottenham Hotspur gave recuperating manager Harry Redknapp the perfect tonic after his heart surgery with a 3-1 win against Fulham at Craven Cottage on Sunday.
Redknapp, 64, has been advised to stay away from soccer for four to five weeks after having two stents inserted to unblock coronary arteries on Wednesday. He missed Thursday’s Europa League defeat at Rubin Kazan and was absent from the dug-out again at Craven Cottage, but Redknapp’s spirits would have been lifted by Tottenham’s victory, which moved the north London club into fifth place in the Premier League, level on points with fourth-placed Chelsea with a game in hand.
Gareth Bale put Tottenham ahead in the 10th minute when Aaron Lennon’s cross reached the Welsh winger, who scored with a shot that deflected in off Chris Baird.
The second goal came in first-half stoppage-time when Lennon’s surging run tormented Baird and ended with a fierce shot that flashed past Fulham goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer.
Fulham got one back in the 57th minute when Tottenham defender Ledley King headed Danny Murphy’s corner against teammate Younes Kaboul’s back and the ball cannoned into the net for an own-goal, but Spurs survived several scares and Jermain Defoe’s 90th-minute goal clinched their seventh win in eight league games.
The defeat left Fulham one point above the bottom three and it was especially disappointing for boss Martin Jol, who had been hoping for a win over his former club.
“Tottenham goalkeeper Brad Friedel was probably the best player on the pitch. We had 26 or 30 attempts on goal after halftime and yet we just couldn’t sneak one in. We deserved at least a point, for sure,” Jol said.
Elsewhere on Sunday, Wolverhampton Wanderers boosted their bid to avoid relegation with a crucial 3-1 win over fellow strugglers Wigan Athletic at Molineux.
Mick McCarthy’s team started the day just three points ahead of bottom-of-the-table Wigan, but goals from Jamie O’Hara, David Edwards and Stephen Ward secured their third league win of the season.
While Wolves are looking up, Wigan, who had briefly been level thanks to Ben Watson’s equalizer, face a long battle to stay in the top flight after their eighth defeat in 11 league games and Wigan’s day got worse amid allegations that Latics defender Antolin Alcaraz spat at Wolves defender Richard Stearman in the 83rd minute.
Referee Lee Probert took no action, but, asked if he had been spat at, Stearman said: “Yes, but I’m not going to speak about it.”
Wolves boss McCarthy was furious about the incident.
“Spitting is taboo, if that’s what happened,” the Wolves boss said. “If it has been shown, that is unacceptable behavior and anyone here who was spat at would act accordingly.”
Wigan boss Roberto Martinez said: “I haven’t seen the replays yet. If that is the case, I’ll look into it and I’ll find out.”
Bolton Wanderers avenged last season’s traumatic FA Cup semi-final defeat with a 5-0 demolition of Stoke City at the Reebok Stadium.
Owen Coyle’s side remain in the bottom three despite the victory, but they are now only a single point from safety after two goals each from Chris Eagles and Ivan Klasnic and one from Kevin Davies secured their first home points of the season.
After losing eight of their last nine league games, and with memories of last season’s 5-0 loss to Stoke at Wembley still painfully fresh, it was a cathartic moment for Bolton and Coyle, who will hope their biggest-ever Premier League home win acts as a springboard to clamber out of trouble.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS