Tottenham 2-0 Everton: player ratings sans theme

Tottenham Hotspur won their seventh match of the Premier League season on Saturday, defeating Everton 2-0 at the soon-to-be-named Google Stadium. It was a good game! Probably one of the best they’ve played thus far this campaign!

Here are your player ratings for this match. I don’t have a theme today. These themed articles are hard to write, I’m on vacation, and I can’t be bothered. I’m sure you understand. If you’d like, make up a theme in your head. It’ll be fun!

5 stars:

Rodrigo Bentancur (Community — 4.0): Outstanding performance from Lolo. Showed tenacity on both sides of the ball despite a first half yellow and was a big part of Spurs’ offense. Set up Hojbjerg’s late goal. Did get caught out once by Demarai Gray on a counter but a good performance overall.

4.5 stars:

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (Community — 4.5): The Robin to Bentancur’s Batman in this match, Hojbjerg was all energy in this one. Content to drop deeper into defense when it mattered, but calmly finished his third goal of the season. We salute you back, General Ho.

Harry Kane (Community — 4.0): On his 400th Tottenham match, Kane had six shots, two of which forced good saves from Pickford, and buried a penalty to bring him within eight goals of Jimmy Greaves. Pretty, pretty good.

4 stars:

Cuti Romero (Community — 4.0): I was almost as impressed with Cuti’s work off the ball as I was on it. Even so, had three tackles and rarely let anything in behind him.

Ben Davies (Community — 4.0): Davies’ ability to carry the ball forward contrasts him with Lenglet’s more static positioning. This was a good matchup for Ben, and he pinged an excellent long ball to Kane that created a good chance. Rarely troubled defensively.

Yves Bissouma (Community — 4.0): He changed the match when he came on. Part of that is tactical, but Yves also showed some signs that he’s starting to understand Conte’s patterns a little more.

Matt Doherty (Community — 4.0): This guy seems pretty good in an Antonio Conte side, doesn’t he? Two shots, including the one that set up Kane’s penalty, and has the license to move forward into the box when appropriate. The only thing holding him back now is sharpness, and that’ll come.

Son Heung-Min (Community — 4.0): Four shots in the match, including a glorious header that he unfortunately just missed. Looked dangerous throughout the match and on another day scores at least one of those chances.

Antonio Conte (Community — 4.0): Gets credit from me for switching to the 3-5-2 after Richarlison’s injury (though honestly, the alternative was persisting with the 3-4-3 with Lucas). Hard to argue with the results, and Spurs actually looked more than just watchable.

3.5 stars

Eric Dier (Community — 4.0): Almost boringly solid at the back. Did well in his matchup against Calvert-Lewin and Maupay. A good part of why Everton didn’t have a shot on target.

Ivan Perisic (Community — 4.0): Had some good moments going forward in this match but still hasn’t imposed himself the way I expected him to. I imagine Sessegnon will start against United.

3 stars:

Hugo Lloris (Community — 3.5): A couple of routine stops, rolled the ball to Romero and Dier a lot. Baseline three stars.

Richarlison (Community — 3.5): The calf injury is sad and if he’s absent for any length of time it hurts Tottenham. That said, he was... fine, but not great. It never seems like he fits alongside Kane and Son, though I’d love to see him in a different spot in the formation, or in the 5-3-2. Feels like we haven’t found his best position.

Tom Carroll Memorial Non-Rating

Davinson Sanchez, Oliver Skipp, Lucas Moura, Djed Spence