Dango Ouattara’s last-gasp Bournemouth winner stuns Spurs

No manager, a fading top-four challenge and losing to relegation candidates. Modern football protocol dictates that such a state of affairs will lead to a club’s ownership being targeted. Calls for Daniel Levy to step aside are not uncommon at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, but they are becoming especially loud from the White Wall Stand when Spurs are losing.

As fans peeled to the exits after an amazing goal by Burkina Faso’s Dango Ouattara in the last seconds of time added, the chants resumed. Like the Glazers at Old Trafford and FSG at Anfield, Levy and the Enic Group felt the heat of failure. Even if Tottenham’s defeat here could be explained by poor finishing, absent-minded defending and the excellence of an inspired, disciplined Bournemouth, the money men, the ownership were barracked as the root cause of failure.

Just when Spurs seemed to have relocated the luck of last week’s VAR-assisted defeat of Brighton, Arnaut Danjuma’s shot from the edge of the box fizzed in to make it 2-2. Harry Kane seemed to be in Bournemouth goalkeeper’s sightline, only for VAR to rule the Spurs captain had not been interfering with play. Redemption at last but it ended up preceding only fury and the away fans’ chants of “we are staying up”.

Gary O’Neil’s intense approach is contributing heavily to a Bournemouth fight that is beginning to look as if might be successful. They remain a continuing credit to him when many had them relegated after the first few matches of the season, and this was a triumph completed by a sub sent on to win territory when Spurs had Bournemouth pinned back.

A game delayed by Bournemouth’s slow passage down the Tottenham High Road had begun with the visitors on the end of Heung-min Son’s opener that arrived as