The twentieth round of the English Premier League season got underway with Boxing Day’s matches where Spurs entertained Southampton at Wembley Stadium, with Spurs claiming a 5-2 victory which included a hat-trick from Harry Kane that gave him the record for most goals scored in a Premier League season of 39, eclipsing Alan Shearer’s 1995 record of 36, opening his account with a goal line header from a left wing free kick from Christian Eriksen in the 22nd minute, adding a second in the 39th minute with a tap in from Son Heung-min’s pull back from the left dead ball line for a 2-nil half time lead. Dele Alli fired in Spurs’s third from outside the box into the bottom right hand corner of the net in the 49th minute, and Son Heung-min drove in a 4th in the 51st minute across goalkeeper Fraser Forster into the left side netting of the goal from just outside the corner of the 6 yard box, Sofiane Boufal pulled a goal back in the 64th minute, Kane claiming his hat-trick in the 67th minute when running into the left side of the box and clipping the ball across Forster into the bottom right hand corner, with Dusan Tadic collecting a consolation for Southampton in the 82nd minute, for a win that lifts Spurs to 4th until Liverpool displaced them in the late game;
Bournemouth hosted West Ham at the Liberty Stadium, in a game full of entertainment, incident, and controversy, that ended 3-all, James Collins heading in the opener from Aaron Cresswell’s corner kick for the Hammers after 7 minutes, Dan Gosling equalising for Bournemouth in the 29th minute, then leading after Nathan Ake’s 57th minute side footer into the bottome left hand corner of the net from Stephen Cook’s cross which led to a 20 minute period of dominance in which West Ham goalkeeper Adrian made a number of important saves, before a brace from Marko Arnautovic, the first a simple tap in after Bournemouth goalkeeper Asmir Begovic slipped on the wet surface in the 81st minute to leave an unattended goal, the second a simple finish from close range after Begovic had blocked Javier Hernandez’s effort, before Callum Wilson claimed an equaliser for Bournemouth which could have been ruled out for offside or handball with the last touch an arm, the referee Bobby Madley overruling the assistant referee and generating heated argument with the West Ham players and staff;
