Tottenham Hotspur won for the first time in four games this afternoon by battling back from a goal down to beat Sunderland 4-1 at White Hart Lane in the Premier League.
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Jordan Pickford was making his Premier League debut in goal for the visitors and he was called into action early on, springing low to his left to tip Harry Kane's curling shot wide.
Spurs went close again before the 10-minute mark when Dele Alli fired over the bar after a loose ball broke his way in the area, with the visitors hanging on a little in the early stages.
Sunderland, chasing a third Premier League win in a row, soon settled and Spurs struggled to create much in the next 30 minutes as the Black Cats defended tightly, giving the hosts no space in front of the penalty area.
Sam Allardyce's men then took a shock lead in the 39th minute and it was Patrick van Aanholt on the scoresheet for the second game in a row, collecting an incisive through-ball from Adam Johnson before finding the smallest of gaps to beat Hugo Lloris at his near post from a tight angle.
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The lead lasted less than two minutes as Christian Eriksen kept up his record of always scoring against Sunderland in the Premier League. The Dane pounced after Pickford had denied Kane and his shot should have been kept out, but the covering Lee Cattermole could not make the clearance on the goalline.
Both sides could have scored a third before half time as Jermain Defoe was denied by Hugo Lloris before Pickford again made an impressive save to deny Eriksen a second.
Defoe spurned a golden chance to put Sunderland back in front shortly after half time, while Alli again missed the target with a header as chances continued to fall at both ends.
The crucial third goal came in the 60th minute and it was Spurs who got it as Moussa Dembele, on his first start since December, fired home after working a yard of space in the box.
Shortly after it was three and a brace for Eriksen as his shot hit Sunderland debutant Jan Kirchhoff and looped up over Pickford into the net.
Kirchhoff's attempted block was half-hearted at best and it went from bad to worse for the former Bayern Munich man when he tripped Danny Rose in the 79th minute to give away a penalty, which Kane stuck away to make it four.
A win moves fourth-placed Spurs to within four points of leaders Arsenal and Leicester for the time being, while Sunderland miss the chance to move out of the relegation zone and in fact drop to 19th behind Newcastle United on goal difference.
Pascal Lemesre
