Harry Kane hat-trick sparks Tottenham demolition of Maccabi Haifa

Harry Kane celebrates with Lucas Moura and Matt Doherty after scoring the second goal of his hat-trick for Tottenham against Maccabi Haifa with a penalty.

To paraphrase Mohammed Abu Fani, the Maccabi Haifa midfielder, he was going to own Harry Kane. Everybody has seen the social media video by now and the only thing to say is that it did not really work out that way.

It was never going to. Tottenham are in a different league to their Israeli opponents on pretty much every level and they made light work of smoothing safe passage into the group phase of the Europa League. It is not exactly the Promised Land after the club had begun to get used to the Champions League but it will do for this season.

After everything that Spurs had done at the end of the previous campaign and how the qualifying rounds of the competition have led to such fixture congestion at the start of this one, it felt like something to celebrate.

Kane scored a hat-trick and José Mourinho even felt emboldened to substitute him with 15 minutes to go and the score at 6-2. Giovani Lo Celso chipped in with two goals and Lucas Moura and the half-time substitute, Dele Alli, got one apiece as Mourinho made nine changes to his lineup for his team’s seventh game in 18 days. They can now look forward to a day off, perhaps, and then the Premier League visit to Manchester United on Sunday. Relentless does not begin to cover it.

Kane found the breakthrough with 92 seconds on the stadium clock and it was a goal that owed plenty to Ben Davies, not to mention Maccabi’s openness on their right. Davies played a give-and-go with Steven Bergwijn and drilled over a low cross to present Kane, who had sniffed out the space, with a tap-in.

It was plain from the early running that Spurs had the beating of Maccabi man-for-man in the final third, that the visitors were going to struggle to keep them at arms’ length, but that they were determined to ask questions at the other end.

Tjaronn Chery’s equaliser was a beauty; the former QPR player got the ball to swerve viciously from outside the area and it flew away from Hart and into the top corner, and it was not an isolated first-half effort. Chery twice extended Hart, Toby Alderweireld had to stretch into one saving challenge and the ubiquitous Abu Fani fizzed just wide of the angle.

Spurs, though, found it so easy to play through Maccabi that they could afford to be relaxed about what their opponents did on the ball. Mourinho’s team had four by the interval and it could have been more. Lo Celso shot into the side-netting when gloriously placed, Bergwijn worked the goalkeeper and Kane had three moments when a finish just eluded him.

From a Maccabi point of view, some of the concessions were grisly – not least those for the second and fourth goals. Lucas was allowed to dart on to a Bergwijn corner and flick a header home at the near post while Lo Celso’s second followed a miscued flick by Bogdan Planic. Kane duly released the Argentinian, whose clipped finish was of the highest order.

In between times, Lo Celso got his first after Lucas’s header was blocked and Kane almost gobbled up the rebound. Instead, Davies did not allow Maccabi to clear and the ball rolled to Lo Celso, who curled into the corner.

It would not be football these days without a couple of dodgy penalties for handball and Maccabi got the first early in the second half when Dolev Haziza blasted the ball at Matt Doherty from about a yard. The full-back had his arms by his sides but it did not matter. Nikita Rukavytsya beat Hart from the spot .

The award of Kane’s kick for 5-2 was also harsh, although Ernest Mabouka was a little further away when Davies hammered a cross at him. Maccabi were enraged.

Moments earlier, Abu Fani, who had a good game, forced Hart into another decent save from distance and there were further chances at both ends, mainly for Spurs. Kane’s third was a nonchalant finish after good work by Bergwijn and there was time at the end for Alli to nutmeg Planic and win a penalty, which he converted to make it 7-2.