Tottenham vs Burnley: Christian Eriksen save Spurs’ blushes with injury-time winner

Christian Eriksen broke through more than 90 minutes of gloom, rain and misery at Wembley this afternoon with an explosion of light. This was one of the worst games of the season and yet Eriksen made it one of the sweetest for Tottenham Hotspur by winning it in added time, after coming on as a late substitute to rescue the occasion that was in dire need of it.

When Eriksen starts for Spurs he runs the game, directs his team-mates and makes everything else on the pitch make sense. When he does not start, like today, his arrival represents the flicking on of a switch in an otherwise dark room. With no Eriksen, football can be a bit of a slog for even this team. With Eriksen, there is always way.

This had been a game of few chances, no drama, and little tempo, played out in a cold wet half-empty Wembley. It will be remembered forever by Oliver Skipp and his family, after the 18-year-old central midfielder who made his full Tottenham debut and gave them 76 creditable minutes. But it will not be remembered by many more.

Of course it was never going to be Tuesday night. Just as not every day can be Christmas, not every Tottenham match can be getting an against-the-odds result at the home of the biggest football club on the planet. Football seasons are long and varied and they must contain light as well as shade.

And while this eventual 1-0 win was certainly not Spurs’ best performance of the season, who knows how valuable these three points will prove to be for them in the end. After smashing Chelsea but losing at Arsenal, it is an open race for those Champions League spots. Had this game finished 0-0 it would have encouraged their rivals, but the nature of this win will instead exasperate them. Even when they play poorly, on a non-event of an afternoon, they can still find a way.

Remember that this game was at one point pencilled in to be the first at the new ground, and while the stadium could easily hold a match like this it has not yet passed the test events to get the required safety certificates. But you can imagine what an afternoon this would have been if it were the first game at the new White Hart Lane: the excitement, the one-off novelty, the sense of revelation to 62,000 people, as if you were watching the whole crowd unwrap the biggest Christmas present of their lives in unison.

But this was not that. It was not new, it was more of the same than ever before. This was very reminiscent of the Southampton game here 10 days ago, when just 33,012 people watched Spurs breeze past a managerless side. This game was better-attended than that, there were 41,645 in the stands, but there was never much of a sense of occasion here either.

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The strain of a busy fixture schedule forced Pochettino into some unusual selections. Oliver Skipp made his full debut, alongside Moussa Sissoko in midfield. And with four senior centre-backs unavailable, Ben Davies had to move inside to start alongside Toby Alderweireld. But in truth the Spurs defence was barely troubled, as they dominated possession and pinned Burnley back in their half.

Burnely, to their credit, did not make things easy for Spurs. Sean Dyche’s team have struggled at the back this season but they came here with a 5-4-1 that did everything to frustrate Spurs. They were physical, determined and happy to take as much time out of the game as they could get away with. It represented something of the old Burnley after some of the uncharacteristic softness we have seen this year. And it made for a tight first half in which Spurs never really looked like breaking through.

James Tarkowski might given away a penalty when he bundled over Harry Kane, but referee Graham Scott did not blow. There were only two real chances: a Lucas Moura volley that flew wide after Lamela chipped him through, and when Lamela was put in by Sissoko but took too heavy a touch. Joe Hart charged out to block him off.

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Tottenham needed to be better in the second half but until they brought on Christian Eriksen there was little prospect of that. Eriksen is so important and so influential to this team that they can look slightly clueless without him, as if they have misplaced the instruction manual to themselves. Today, as against Inter two week ago, Eriksen came on and made everything else make sense.

Spurs suddenly started creating chances, first from two other substitutes combining, Heung Min Son volleying wide from Fernando Llorente’s knockdown with five minutes left. Dele Alli failed to turn in a cross at the far post. And then, in the first added minute, the climax: Trippier’s long ball found Llorente, Alli’s touch, Kane’s pass, and there was Eriksen, always moving, always anticipating, to tuck it away.