Orlando Pirates 0-3 Tottenham: Defoe completes comfortable victory after Van der Vaart double

The home side started brightly in a repeat of Tuesday’s fixture in which the sides drew 1-1, with Pirates winger Tlou Segolela finding space on the left hand side following a slip from Kyle Walker, only for the 21-year-old to recover well and block the shot.

Spurs soon began to take a firm grip on the game in the attacking third, with two cross-field balls from Benoit Assou-Ekotto in quick succession finding Peter Crouch in space, only for the striker’s first touch to elude him as he failed to hit the target on both occasions.

The visitors looked increasingly potent as the game progressed, with Tom Huddlestone and Aaron Lennon continually exploiting space on the right-hand side of the pitch, but were thwarted in their attempts to find the head of Crouch by some last-ditch defending from the South Africans.

A rash foul by the lively midfielder Andile Jali on the edge of the box gave Van der Vaart the chance to emulate his effort from earlier in the week just after the half hour mark, and the Dutchman duly obliged, guiding the ball over a four man wall and into the bottom right hand corner of Senzo Meyiwa’s goal.

The Tottenham defense however continued to look less than tight, with Bongani Ndulula unable to capitalise on the superb play of Happy Jele, as he twice failed to hit the target following the midfielder's through balls, scuppering a great chance on the stroke of halftime.

Jermain Defoe, Wilson Palacios, Niko Krancjar and Alan Hutton were all introduced at half-time, but it was the vision of Assou-Ekotto which again released Van der Vaart – the forward this time beating the offside trap and finding the back of the net at the second time of asking with a looping effort eight minutes after the restart.

Palacios lost out cheaply in his own half to allow Mark Mayambela space to drive, only for the midfielder's tame shot to be blocked easily, as the Tottenham defense began to nullify the somewhat limited attacking threat of the Pirates. Indeed, the home side did not get a clear sight at goal until the 70th minute, only for Gomes to easily save Segolela’s low drive from the right hand side of the six-yard box.

Gareth Bale replaced Modric with 20 minutes left to play, and made an almost immediate impact, firing the ball into the back of the net following Defoe’s flick on, only for the Welshman to be rightly declared offside.

The lively Segolela should have pulled one back for the South Africans, having seen his cross connect with the arm of Sebastian Bassong. However, the 23-year-old failed to convert the resulting penalty as he hit the left-hand post after sending Gomes the wrong way.

Bale’s superb cross was then converted by Defoe to make it 3-0 with four minutes left to play, with Spurs showing steady progression ahead of the new Premier League season.

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