Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Portsmouth: Harry Kane one behind Jimmy Greaves’ Spurs document after FA Cup winner

Harry Kane moved inside one in every of Jimmy Greaves’ Tottenham goalscoring document with a trademark end to earn Spurs a secure FA Cup passage in opposition to Portsmouth.

Kane has now scored 265 Spurs objectives, one behind the legendary Greaves.

Oliver Skipp fired over an important probability so as to add a second purpose however the League One guests had no reply to Kane’s strike.

The England striker has the possibility to equal the document, and even break it if he scores greater than eleven, within the north London Premier League derby at house to Arsenal on 15 January.

With Dejan Kulusevski, Richarlison and Lucas Moura amongst a rising Spurs harm checklist, Antonio Conte was compelled to start out Kane and Son Heung-min in a powerful ahead line regardless of making eight adjustments general.

Spurs had scored only one first-half purpose of their earlier 12 video games and by no means seemed like including to that in a quiet opening 45 minutes in north London, failing to register a single shot on the right track.

Certainly, Portsmouth, cheered on by a sold-out allocation of greater than 8,000 noisy visiting followers, created the primary half’s greatest effort as Reeco Hackett-Fairchild’s acrobatic shot on the flip was pushed large by Fraser Forster.

Nonetheless, Spurs stepped issues up following the restart and, simply after Royal headed Son’s deep cross on to the submit, Kane produced the second of magic that finally proved decisive.

Spurs in search of long-awaited cup cheer

Conte’s assistant Cristian Stellini this week mentioned the FA Cup was “an necessary goal” for Tottenham and that their gamers had spoken of the necessity to finish a trophy drought relationship again 15 years to Spurs’ 2008 League Cup win.

They’re out of the Carabao Cup this season and sit fifth within the Premier League, 11 factors behind leaders Arsenal having performed a recreation extra, leaving the FA Cup and Champions League as their reasonable hopes of ending that barren spell.

Tottenham haven’t reached the FA Cup remaining since profitable the competitors in 1991, dropping in all eight of their subsequent semi-final appearances.

Spurs supporters of a superstitious ilk will take coronary heart from the actual fact they beat Pompey en path to Wembley 32 years in the past when Paul Gascoigne – a Tottenham talisman akin to Kane – scored twice in to 2-1 win at Fratton Park.

Harder checks than this one will lie on the street forward if they’re so as to add to their eight FA Cup wins however Spurs produced knowledgeable, if unexceptional, efficiency to restrict managerless Pompey to little or no.

Portsmouth are on a nine-game winless run that has seen them slip to twelfth within the third tier, 9 factors off the play-offs – a sequence that this week value boss Danny Cowley his job after nearly two years in cost.

The 2008 winners, enduring an eleventh successive season exterior English soccer’s prime two tiers as they get well from close to monetary smash, produced a resilient and arranged effort for caretaker boss Simon Bassey, however Kane’s winner ensured Spurs haven’t misplaced at house to a non-top- flight group within the FA Cup since 1975, a run spanning 44 video games.