Tottenham 9 Wigan 1- Harry Redknapps rant lifts Spurs to record spree as Jermain Defoe hits five
23 Nov 2009 - 07:26:19
Jermain Defoe responded to Harry Redknapp's half-time roasting byscoring five goals as Tottenham destroyed Wigan 9-1 to notch up theirrecord Barclays Premier League win.
TheSpurs boss was so unhappy that his players were only 1-0 up followingPeter Crouch's ninth-minute opener that he sent them out five minutesearly for the second half at White Hart Lane.
His words clearly had the desired effect as Spurs went on to scoreanother eight, while England striker Defoe bagged a seven-minutehat-trick on the way to his personal record haul. 'At half-time we toldthem they had to start pressing,' said Redknapp.
Having a ball: Defoe became the third player in Premier League history to score five goals in a match
'Wewere great for 25 minutes, then we stopped pressing them. They cameback into it and had more possession, so we wanted to get back to whatwe'd spoken about in the week. We got after them again right from thefirst whistle in the second half and punished them.'
It was the biggest win in the Premier League since Manchester United beat Ipswich Town 9-0 in 1995.
Defoe joins Ted Harper, Alfie Stokes and Les Allen as only the fourth Spurs player to score five goals in a game.
In flight: Defoe's second was the pick of his goals
PraisingDefoe's marksmanship, Redknapp, whose team leapt back into the topfour, said: 'He's an amazing finisher. You give him half a chance, hemakes a yard and bangs it in the back of the net. Rooney's fantastic, acomplete, all-round player. But as a finisher, he (Defoe) is thebest.'.
Defoe said: 'I'm not going to lie, I was thinking about the doublehat-trick. I looked up and saw there were another 15 minutes left, so Iwas thinking 'I'm playing with fantastic players, I'm going to getchances'. It was a like a dream, brilliant. I looked over to themanager and he looked shocked as well.'
Wiganboss Roberto Martinez insisted his players will bounce back, saying:'The result is not normal. It's one of those freaks. You have hugeanger because we've come a long way this season. But the way we startedthe second half was not us at all. I'm not bothered about the score,I'm more bothered about how naive we were.'
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