Tottenham Hotspur rout South China to seal third place in Asia Trophy - The Guardian

The mission for André Villa-Boas was not third place in the Asia Trophy for his Tottenham Hotspur side – achieved with this easy 6-0 win – but to emerge from the sticky-looking pitch on which Jan Vertonghen suffered sprained ankle ligaments on Wednesday evening with his team still healthy.

This appeared to be accomplished as Spurs walked off in the torrential rain that hit the latter stages of the contest, with Jermain Defoe's hat-trick, a South China own goal, Clint Dempsey's finish and Andros Towsend's late free-kick dispatching Hong Kong's champions with ease.

The injury to Gareth Bale's right buttock kept football's most wanted man from participating in this tournament, although he may be fit for the 3 August trip to Monaco, Spurs next outing.

By half-time Tottenham and the result were out of sight, Defoe's strike taking his team into a 3-0 lead over South China as the players strolled off.

In their 4-2-3-1 formation Moussa Dembélé ran the first period, ambling around on a surface that after a rare day of almost no rain was sand-heavy, with swathes of straw-coloured turf evidence of the frantic effort to make sure it was playable after Wednesday's semi-finals were nearly called off.

The Belgian created Spurs opener. A slick pass to Dempsey preceded the ball being relayed onto Danny Rose down the left. The fullback aimed a cross at Gylfi Sigurdsson only for Tse Sean Ka Keung to turn beyond Zhang Chunhui for the own goal.

The pace of Aaron Lennon and Kyle Walker continually spun South China down their right hand side, demonstrated when the latter was played in by the former, although when the ball came to Defoe his touch was heavy.

Dempsey provided Spurs second of the evening. A powerful Steven Caulker header from halfway became a defence-splitting ball that Defoe ran onto. He beat a man, then turned possession inside to the American, who allowed Chunhui no chance.

Before this a Defoe header hit the left post and he also had a close range effort saved by Chunhui. His opening goal finally came when Walker's 25-yard free-kick from the left took a deflection to the forward, and Defoe made no mistake.

Before 10 minutes of the second half were played, the unfortunate Chunhui felt the derision of the crowd after an attempted clearance was fluffed and Defoe wandered forward to place the ball into the empty goal.

Defoe might have filled his boots to end with at least a double hat-trick. He had to settle for half that count, securing his third with an 80th-minute finish. Townsend completed the rout.