Kane finally scores in August as Tottenham defeat Fulham
Harry Kane broke his August goal drought as the England striker was on target in Tottenham Hotspur’s 3-1 victory over Fulham at Wembley Stadium yesterday.
Despite proving prolific for the London club for the rest of the year, Kane had never netted in the Premier League in the month of August.
But he slotted home Tottenham’s third goal in their triumph over London rivals Fulham.
The strike came after he had earlier hit the woodwork from close range, a moment that had made the man who won the Golden Boot at the World Cup in the summer fear his scoreless streak in this month was going to carry on.
“It looked like it would be one of those days for me, but that is the game of a striker,” he told Sky Sports.
“I can put it in the back of my mind now. A lot of people talked about it. It always seemed to happen in August for me.”
Tottenham had taken the lead in the first half through Lucas Moura’s curling effort, but Fulham hit back to level early in the second half as Aleksandar Mitrovic headed home from close range.
But Kane’s England teammate Kieran Trippier put Tottenham back in front with a brilliant free-kick and Kane sealed their second successive victory, after their win at Newcastle United on the opening weekend of the season.
“I thought we played really well and we created a lot of chances,” Kane added. “But credit to Fulham and only after about 60 minutes did we start to take it into more dangerous areas.”
It was Fulham’s second successive defeat in their first season back in the top flight after a four-year hiatus and Mitrovic said he and his teammates must learn from their errors quickly.
“When you play the very top teams you can’t afford to make mistakes and we made a lot of mistakes today,” he said. “We are disappointed, but we will try and recover for the next big game.”
Bournemouth also made it two wins out of two this season as they came from behind to win 2-1 at West Ham United.
West Ham had taken the lead in the first half through Marko Arnautovic’s penalty, but Eddie Howe’s men levelled after the restart through a fine solo effort from Callum Wilson, before Steve Cook headed home the winner.
Howe said: “Excellent win, excellent performance, especially the second half. One nil down, to come back there’s a lot of work to do so credit to the players.”
Jamie Vardy was sent off for Leicester City for a wild lunge, but the Englishman’s indiscipline did not prove too costly as his teammates clinched a 2-0 success over Wovlerhampton Wanderers.
Matt Doherty’s own goal and James Maddison’s first strike for Leicester after joining from Norwich City in the summer put Claude Puel’s side in charge.
Vardy was then dismissed for a wild challenge on Doherty but Leicester held on for their first win of the campaign.
Despite taking all three points, Puel was impressed by the team he had beaten.
“They played well,” he said of Wolves. “They are difficult to read. They cause a lot of difficulty. It is difficult to defend against them. In the first few minutes, it was crazy without anticipation. We were lucky.”
Neil Etheridge made it two penalty saves in two weeks for Cardiff City as his injury-time stop to deny Kenedy earned the Welsh side a first point of the campaign as they drew 0-0 with Newcastle United.
Newcastle had ended the game with 10 men after substitute Isaac Hayden had been sent off.