Six weeks’ pause for breath never looked so tempting. This match had a seesaw feel about it at the outset and went on to surpass itself; Tottenham and Leeds were exhilarating and exasperating in turn, often during the same sequence of play, but when the music stopped it was Antonio Conte who could savour the moment with his inimitable brand of arm-whirling euphoria. He had enjoyed watching Harry Kane and Ben Davies adorn their World Cup preparations with goals but nobody in the ground could have predicted the identity of the player who turned things on their head.
Rodrigo Bentancur had been helpless to prevent his opponent and namesake, the forward Rodrigo, from scoring his second outstanding goal of the game but need not have been concerned. Spurs were losing again with 14 minutes left but, by the time seven more had passed, the Uruguayan had converted two chances of his own. The first was a 15-yard drive deflected in via Luke Ayling, Leeds’s unfortunate substitute; next up was a close-range finish after stellar work from Dejan Kulusevski, whose return to the starting lineup after injury made all the difference for Tottenham. Now Conte can avoid too many awkward questions given Spurs will spend Christmas in the top four.
