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João Gomes (centre) celebrates after scoring Wolves’ first goal against Tottenham.
João Gomes (centre) celebrates with teammates after giving Wolves a first-half lead against Tottenham. Photograph: Chloe Knott/Danehouse/Getty Images
João Gomes (centre) celebrates with teammates after giving Wolves a first-half lead against Tottenham. Photograph: Chloe Knott/Danehouse/Getty Images

João Gomes at the double as Wolves end Tottenham’s recent revival

This article is more than 11 months old

They sought him here and they sought him there but even in a bright red Wolves away shirt, João Gomes twice proved as evasive as the Scarlet Pimpernel.

As a result, Tottenham’s outside title hopes lie in tatters and their recent revival stutters to another halt as their defensive line once again proved too easy to undo with a frisson of cunning lathered on to hours of careful planning.

In recent weeks Tottenham have plucked results out of thin air when hampered by similar below-par ­performances throughout the team. They now have two weeks to lick their wounds before they are next in action but Ange Postecoglou, for all his ­affability and geniality, has nothing up his sleeve to try to lift those spirits back to those levels that excited Spurs fans when he first arrived.

“There’s no tricks – I’m not a magician, I’m a football manager,” he said. “It’s hard work which these guys have done all year. We’ve got to this point, which is pretty decent, on the back of some hard work and that’s what we’ll keep doing. I don’t know if the two weeks is a blessing, it is what it is. There’s no point feeling sorry for ­ourselves. You take the blows and you’ve got to move on irrespective of what’s happened in the past.”

Crystal Palace are the next opponents and with Roy Hodgson recovering from illness but technically still the club’s manager, there was an awkward moment when the cameras picked out the replacement-in-waiting, Oliver Glasner, in the stands.

Still, the Austrian’s brazenness in coming to the game was rewarded by a masterclass in how to beat Postecoglou’s peculiar brand of football.

Indeed, Wolves’ run-and-hit tactics worked perfectly to end the five-game unbeaten run Tottenham had put together with the 5ft 9in João Gomes getting them under way just before half time.

It was as if Tottenham’s defence could not see the would-be assassin for trees. Max Kilman and Toti Gomes were planted quite deliberately on the edge of the six-yard area like mighty oaks, worried defenders jostling them ineffectually as Pablo Sarabia waited to take the corner.

The Spanish footballer’s target, though, was sheltered in the lee of the giant central defenders and sure enough emerged to head in from the centre of a veritable clearing having been missed completely throughout the manoeuvre.

That half-time lead was no more than Wolves deserved as Spurs’ performance, lacklustre despite the return of skipper Son Heung-min to the starting line-up after his return from the Asian Cup, was too ­easily picked apart by the simplest of counterattacks.

As early as the sixth minute, Hwang Hee-chan should have put the ­visitors ahead with a bit more composure after Guglielmo Vicario could only parry Nélson Semedo’s shot into his path.

Spurs equalised just 34 seconds into the second period after Dejan Kulusevski seemed to run through Craig Dawson before slotting the ball through the legs of José Sá from the tightest of angles, but even that always seemed a temporary reprieve for a team fixed upon defensive implosion.

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Vicario’s save from Sarabia’s poor shot after he was picked out by Semedo should have been a warning, but it went unheeded.

Pedro Neto was a good 10 yards inside his own half when he began his unhindered gallop towards the Tottenham goalline after 63 ­minutes and when he finally cut the ball back, it was the surreptitious presence of João Gomes which had again gone unnoticed and he took as much time as he needed to find a path for his shot past the Spurs goalkeeper.

Postecoglou’s counter-intuitive response was to take off his in-form goalscorer Richarlison and drop main playmaker James Maddison deep.

Wolves, though, with those tree-like defenders now rooted firmly back in their more usual place, repelled whatever late blows Tottenham could throw at them.

“We counterattacked them, which we know we were going to be able to do,” Wolves manager, Gary O’Neil, said. “We defended well but it was the way we counterattacked them which was why we were able to get into so many good situations. When Tottenham pressed us, we were able to find good solutions and we knew we would be able to press ­aggressively sometimes.”

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