Paulo Gazzaniga was arguably the star of the show as Tottenham Hotspur beat Crystal Palace 1-0 at Wembley.
Paulo Gazzaniga
Eric Dier has told BT Sport’s live post-match coverage of Tottenham’s Premier League clash with Crystal Palace (broadcast on 5th November 2017 from 11:30 am) that Paulo Gazzaniga only found out that he was making his Spurs debut on Sunday morning, and that he thought the summer signing did really well in the narrow win.
Mauricio Pochettino’s men went into the international break with three points under their belt, but the contest against the league’s bottom side was a lot closer than some may have expected.
Perhaps feeling the hangover from their sensational Champions League win over Real Madrid in midweek, Tottenham needed Son Heung-min to produce a wonderful strike from the edge of the box to break Palace’s resistance, but he was not the only player Tottenham would have been grateful to in the win.
Gazzaniga – who was making his debut for the side following his summer move from Southampton – produced a number of fine saves to keep Roy Hodgson’s men at bay. And Dier disclosed after the game that the Argentinian only found out in the hours leading up to the game that he was going to be playing.
“I thought he did really, really well in obviously a difficult situation. I think he only found out he was playing this morning so very difficult circumstances for him – and he came in and did really well.”
Though it was arguably not a flawless display from Tottenham, they will surely be delighted that they have managed to win on a day when they were certainly not at their best.
And the performance should give Gazzaniga a tremendous boost that he can contribute to the team during the coming years – especially as he had such a small amount of time to properly prepare.
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