With his long-term Tottenham future very much up in the air given all the Pedro Porro speculation at present, Emerson Royal provided a timely reminder of just what he can offer Antonio Conte's side on Monday evening at Fulham. Named in the starting XI for the second successive game, the Brazilian international played a key role in helping the team get back to winning ways.
As much as Tottenham fans would love to see the Italian's side playing free-flowing football and scoring goals for fun, it was vitally important that the Lilywhites just found a way to win in west London after those back-to-back defeats against Arsenal and Man City. Under the cosh for the majority of the first half and scoring against the run of play courtesy of a moment of magic from Harry Kane, it was not exactly pretty for the majority of the contest but they did get the job done.
Key to that was always going to be remaining strong at the back and frustrating the likes of Aleksandar Mitrovic, Willian and Bobby Decordova-Reid in the final third, especially after conceding a worrying 21 goals in their previous ten league fixtures. Registering only their second clean sheet in the league since the middle of October, Emerson was a pivotal figure at the back as he produced one of his best performances in a Tottenham shirt.
