James Maddison was happy to respond in the right way to a “big-profile name” after his 13th-minute goal gave Tottenham a 1-0 victory over Manchester United.
The two teams started the day closer to the Premier League relegation zone than the top six and it was Spurs who gained three points following a 10th goal of the campaign by the fit-again Maddison.
Maddison celebrated with a shush to the camera after midweek criticism from ex-Man United captain Roy Keane, who questioned on The Overlap how much of a difference the Tottenham playmaker being available would make to Ange Postecoglou.
“Just a little bit of outside noise wasn’t there, this week? Listen, people have their opinions, but I wanted to do my talking on the pitch today, so I hope there’s a certain few that enjoyed me being the match-winner,” Maddison told Sky Sports.
“No-one is more critical of myself than me. To be fair to the gaffer, he always talks about blocking out the outside noise, but sometimes it’s difficult.
“You can use it but I think the gaffer prefers when we’re just in our little bubble and listening to him.
“Sometimes it’s difficult because it’s constantly in your face these days with social media and WhatsApp. People sending stuff and you do see it and it is there.
“Especially when it’s a big-profile name. Listen, it’s about responding in the right way and I did that today and like I said, I was the match-winner, so I’m really delighted.”
Postecoglou had not been aware of Maddison’s celebration but was not surprised that the 28-year-old threw a shot back at Keane.
He added: “Everybody has mentioned his celebration but I didn’t see it so I can’t comment on it, but it doesn’t surprise me that Madders didn’t accept what was being said about him and threw a shot back over the bow.”
This first home league win for Tottenham since November 3 moved them up to 12th and eased the growing scrutiny on Postecoglou after they exited the Carabao Cup and FA Cup in the space of 72 hours earlier this month.
Spurs were without 11 players for their cup defeat at Villa but the roles were reversed for this fixture with the hosts boosted by the return of Guglielmo Vicario and Maddison, while United lost Manuel Ugarte, Kobbie Mainoo and Amad Diallo to injury over the weekend and were without 12 in total.
Vicario showed his class with a key early save to deny Alejandro Garnacho before Maddison broke the deadlock when Andre Onana could only push out Lucas Bergvall’s low effort.
Garnacho was thwarted again by Vicario in the 58th minute with a superb low stop and it proved enough to settle a contest that lacked quality despite a regular end-to-end nature.
When Postecoglou was asked if he had sympathy for Ruben Amorim’s current injury crisis, the Australian joked: “If I check my office, I don’t have any sympathy cards from other managers, so that hasn’t happened!
“I could see Ruben there, players out of position, kids on the bench. Well, welcome to my world, but that’s for one game. Now do that for two months.
“I thought Man United were good today, considering all that and we had our days when we were good, we beat Liverpool in this spell. Do that for two months.”
Garnacho was United’s most profligate player with a first-half effort lifted over but Joshua Zirkzee also headed a golden 72nd-minute opportunity wide.
Amorim acknowledged: “I think the big difference was the goal they scored. We didn’t score.
“We had the chances and we tried a different approach with the players that we had. We had to change during the week and I am really pleased with the effort and the way they challenged Tottenham.
“We create situations but in the end the biggest difference was they score and we didn’t.”
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