da jogodeouro： Emmanuel Adebayor’s scored his second brace of the week as Tottenham came from behind to secure a comfortable victory against West Brom at the Hawthorns.
da bwin： The on-loan striker had scored twice to secure all three points against Aston Villa on Monday night and repeated the trick to ensure Spurs made it another week in the Premier League’s top three. He was on hand to level the game tucking home the rebound from his own missed penalty after Youssouf Mulumbu had given the hosts the lead with a 10th minute header. Jermaine Defoe put the visitors in front with a superb striker from distance before Adebayor wrapped the proceedings up sweeping home Gareth Bale’s pass on the counter attack. Harry Redknapp’s side have now won nine of their last 10 league games and have a real chance of leapfrogging Manchester United into second has they like just two points behind and have a game in hand. For West Brom the defeat leaves them in 13th as they lost for the third time in their last four although boss Roy Hodgson will be left ruing his sides luck after they had a goal and penalty claim turned down. Harry Redknapp, on the other hand, will be delighted that his side continued their impressive unbeaten streak although he won’t have been pleased with their showing in the first half. Shorn of the creative influences of Luka Modric and Rafael Van Der Vaart the visitors lacked any sort of imagination in the final third as Albion started the stronger of the two teams.
An enterprising start was rewarded in the 10th minute with Mulumbu ghosting in-between Ledley King and Younes Kaboul to head home Steven Reid’s delicious cross. That served as a wake up call for Spurs and they soon found themselves back in the game through Adebayor’s penalty. Aaron Lennon surged into the penalty area from the right appearing to be fouled by Nicky Shorey despite protestations from the home side that the winger had gone to ground too easily. Despite that Adebayor scored at the second attempt after seeing his initial effort from 12-yards saved by Ben Foster. The home side responded superbly and were soon appealing for a penalty of their own after Jerome Thomas went down under pressure from Kyle Walker with referee Lee Probert waving away any appeals. He angered the Hawthorns faithful even more by disallowing a goal after Brad Friedel was fouled coming out to gather a Reid cross before refusing to blow after a second penalty appeal following Shane Long’s tangle with King in the area. Despite that West Brom continued to to press and ended the half strongly with Mulumbu going close with an effort.
Spurs started the second period the stronger with Adebayor going close to a second forcing Foster into a smart save before referee Probert turned down more penalty appeals from the home side after James Morison went down in the box whilst tussling with Kaboul. The game continued to ebb and flow before Defoe turned the tide in the visitors favour with goal nine minutes from time. After calling for more game time during the week he justified his selection striding forward from Adebayor’s back heel before smashing the ball in from 22-yards to put his side in-front. Albion went gung ho in their attempts to force an equaliser but left themselves open at the back as everyone charged forward towards the Spurs goal. It proved to be a devastating ploy as Kaboul’s long ball found Bale who picked out Adebayor 12-yards from goal and the striker made no mistake slotting past Foster to make it four goals in a week and keep Spurs in contention for automatic Champions League qualification.
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