Abdoulaye Doucoure raised his hand but I’m fully behind him reacting that way. He shouldn’t do it but Harry Kane fouled Demarai Gray, the whistle is blown, and Kane has gone right through him. That is a ligament-damaging injury to his knee because Doucoure isn’t going in wholeheartedly, he’s trying to stop the ball and Kane’s continued to go through - that reminds me of previous injuries I’ve had.
There’s a retaliation from Doucoure which I get, he went one step too far, it is a red. We saw it last year with Sadio Mane pushing Mason Holgate in the face but he stayed up and nothing happened.
To me it shows that Harry Kane doesn’t trust the officials in the Premier League. Harry Kane, the England captain, doesn’t trust VAR and it shows the state of our refereeing in this country that the England captain has to throw himself on the floor to get a reaction to get the right decision in the end.
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He’s doubting that if he stands up, the referee will just give him a yellow card, he decides to throw himself on the floor to make the referee make it a straight red card.
Would I go to war with Harry Kane? Not after that show and I feel the England captain let himself down. The way he milked it was embarrassing, he did it because he doesn’t trust the referees to make the right decision. Doucoure was showing a lot of passion, he’s come back into the team under Sean Dyche and raised his game, he’s just overstepped that mark but I understand the reaction from Doucoure.
He’s going to be a huge miss but he does need to understand the reaction, passion does get the better of every player while I get his reaction, you just can’t do it and it’s a sending-off.
Everton used to be a soft touch but that was the reaction that was needed
It was a fantastic finish from Michael Keane, a fantastic strike, I was right behind. It’s easy to say now but at the time it did just open up for him and in my head I was thinking ‘have a go’, it reminded me of Vincent Kompany’s where the only option was to have a go.
I liked his comments after the game where he said many won’t believe him but he does find the net quite a lot in training, so to do that in a game is great. It was a goal we very much deserved, a fantastic one, a point is the least we deserved with the performance.
Keane, since he’s come back under Sean Dyche, has got his confidence back. He’s had to play catch-up with teammates in and around him but his performances have been decent.
I thought we exploited Tottenham a lot more than they exploited us, they dictated the play and had a system they were getting a bit of joy from but didn’t hurt Jordan Pickford. When we got into certain areas just our final ball or decision-making let us down.
We defended brilliantly as a team, not just James Tarkowski and Keane, we didn’t panic but we want to win games and smell blood a little bit. The issues we’ve had all season where we’ve got two or three options and we choose the wrong one every time, with better options available - we’re trying to force the issue, you’ve got to make it easier and we need to fine-tune that.
Dyche and the players will be aware of that - but there are small margins that will help us win the football games and if we get that decision-making right we’ll be able to make the game a lot easier for us. I’ve got to give everyone huge credit, I’ve criticised this set of players, we’ve conceded and crumbled, we’ve been a soft touch and let teams bully us but the reaction after going to down to 10 men was great to see and we were the better side.
Spurs seemed to be more shellshocked than us, the fighting spirit - which we’ve been lacking - is what we’re going to need from now until the end of the season. We lifted the levels and caused them problems and it was great to see, we deserved to get the wonder-strike that it was.
Walking off the pitch as a player, the commitment, work-rate, to come off with something should be a confidence boost that they need to take into another tough game. You’ve played a top side and we give them a game, if we had a little bit more luck towards the end, we would’ve got three points.
We’ve looked a soft touch defensively and going forward but it looks like we now have a plan and an identity. There are improvements all around and if the players show that commitment and desire that they showed on Monday night until the end of the season, I’m sure we’ll get more points to stay in the Premier League.
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