James Maddison bags brace as five-star Tottenham ease past sorry Southampton

Tottenham ran riot on the south coast with James Maddison on target twice to earn Ange Postecoglou a much-needed Premier League victory by a 5-0 score, which only increased the pressure on Southampton head coach Russell Martin.

Spurs were winless in five ahead of this clash at St Mary’s and without nine players, but scored three times inside 14 minutes.

Maddison started the rout after 36 seconds before captain Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski struck in quick succession.

It gets even better for Spurs...

James Maddison gets on the scoresheet for the seventh time this season to give his side a 5-0 half-time lead!#SOUTOT pic.twitter.com/Xr5lAhPGPE

— Premier League (@premierleague) December 15, 2024

The Saints’ faithful could have been forgiven for getting flashbacks of the 9-0 loss to Leicester in 2019 and turned their anger on under-fire Martin.

Postecoglou’s men were not finished there, with Pape Sarr able to grab a fourth in the 25th minute before Maddison added another in first-half stoppage-time.

It failed to stop Tottenham’s noisy away support repeatedly calling for chairman Daniel Levy to leave the club, but this result – on the club’s first return to Southampton since Antonio Conte’s extraordinary rant in 2023 – moved them within four points of fifth-placed Manchester City.

This was a battle between two head coaches wedded to their attacking philosophy but in desperate need of a victory and Postecoglou handed first league starts to Djed Spence and teenager Lucas Bergvall.

Amid a poor run of form, discontent amongst the Tottenham fanbase had grown with frustration aimed at chairman Levy and chants for him to leave occurred immediately after kick-off.

However, 36 seconds later and Spurs’ travelling support had a goal