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Harry: "It's been a while!"

Fri 02 October 2020, 10:45|Tottenham Hotspur

Time flies when you’re scoring goals - and Harry Kane didn’t need telling that his hat-trick against Maccabi Haifa represented his first Spurs treble since Boxing Day, 2017!

It seems incredible, but the prolific striker had to wait the best part of three years for hat-trick number 12 for the Club, leaving him just behind the great Jimmy Greaves (15) in terms of trebles scored in a Lilywhite shirt.

This time around, two clinical close-range finishes and a penalty saw him claim the matchball as he spearheaded a 7-2 victory over the Israeli Premier League side in the Europa League play-off.

It was his first hat-trick in the Europa League since his first for the Club, that famous night in October, 2014 when he scored three against Asteras Tripolis at the Lane, then went in goal when Hugo Lloris was sent off, let in a free-kick and found his hat-trick overshadowed by Erik Lamela’s ‘rabona’ goal! His second European treble came in the Champions League win at APOEL in September, 2017.

Match report and debrief

“It’s been a while!” smiled Harry, who said he’d ‘been reminded a few times’ that this was his first Spurs treble since late 2017. “Time goes quickly. It was nice to get the three goals. Let’s keep them coming.”

This was our seventh match in 19 days, Harry has started five and we were 5-2 up with time ticking along... he explained that a striker’s instinct had him determined to grab that third.

“Whenever you get the second goal... obviously I knew I wasn’t going to play the whole game, so you just hope another chance comes along as quickly as possible,” he told us.

“Thankfully it did, Stevie (Bergwijn) played a great ball into me and it was nice to finish that one off. As a striker you want score goals whenever you are on the pitch, you want to get the chances and thankfully I took a few again.”

We were clinical when we got our chances and whenever you score seven goals, you can’t really complain, so we’re delighted

Harry Kane

Harry was joined on the scoresheet by Gio Lo Celso (2), Lucas and Dele. Maccabi Haifa levelled Harry’s early opener with a bolt from the blue from Tjaronn Chery on 17 minutes, but Lucas put us back in front soon after and we were 4-1 up by half-time thanks to two smart finishes from Gio. Harry’s second and third made it 5-2 and 6-2 before Dele complete the scoring from the penalty spot.

Harry added: “I think there were spells in the game where we could have done better, and credit to them, they played well. We were clinical when we got our chances and whenever you score seven goals, you can’t really complain, so we’re delighted with that.

“It’s been a long process (to reach the group stage) with the three qualifying rounds to this point, but job done tonight. Obviously playing two days ago and two days before that is never easy, but the boys have been great.

“We’ve done what we needed to, now we look forward to the group stage, and we go again on Sunday.”

The draw for the group stage takes place at 12noon UK time today (Friday). We return to Premier League action against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday (4.30pm).