Dejan Kulusevski joined an elite troupe of Tottenham Hotspur players with his man-of-the-match performance in Friday's 2-0 Premier League win over Nottingham Forest.
The Swedish attacker stole the City Ground spotlight to steer Ange Postecoglou's men to back-to-back top-flight victories, firstly crossing for Richarlison to head home inside first-half stoppage time.
Twenty minutes after the restart, Kulusevski then made the most of a Matt Turner howler, lashing home at the American's near post after his poor attempt at a clearance, as he played the ball straight to the Scandinavian under pressure from Son Heung-min.
Prior to Friday's triumph, Kulusevski had also scored and set up another in Tottenham's pulsating 3-3 draw against Manchester City at the Etihad, teeing up Son before salvaging a point for Spurs in the 90th minute.
In doing so, the former Juventus man became just the fourth Tottenham player to register a goal and assist in successive Premier League away games, joining Son, Harry Kane and Dimitar Berbatov in that exclusive club.
Once again, Kulusevski was deployed as Spurs' number 10 at the City Ground in place of the injured James Maddison and Giovani Lo Celso, as Brennan Johnson and Son supported Richarlison from the wings.
However, Johnson was then forced off with a head injury after just 32 minutes, forcing Postecoglou to revert Kulusevski to a central role as Oliver Skipp came on to replace the bloodied Johnson.
The mid-game position change had little impact on Kulusevski's threat level, though, as the 23-year-old created two big chances, completed 93% of his passes and also saw all three of his long balls reach their intended target.
Postecoglou was unsurprisingly full of praise for Kulusevski after the game and has been particularly pleased with the winger's increased goal threat, having highlighted that aspect of his game as an area to work on.
"Yeah, he was great. He's been great all year to be fair," Postecoglou told reporters in his post-match press conference, as quoted by football.london.
"We've played him in a number of positions. We started him off in the middle and I thought he was really good and causing them problems. I thought we were looking really strong through that early bit and created a couple of really good opportunities.
"Then Brennan goes off and we had to put him wide. We know what he can do out there and we've been working hard with him to become more of a goal threat. We feel that's the one aspect of his game that he still needs to bridge a gap.
"He's taken that on board and he's now getting into positions where he can score goals. He has in the last few games and his general work rate is outstanding but he's got the quality to back it up."
Kulusevski now boasts 12 goals and 18 assists from 75 matches in a Tottenham jersey since his initial loan move from Juventus in January 2022, which was converted into a permanent deal for £25.8m this summer.
Tottenham's triumph on Friday moved them level on points with fourth-placed Manchester City in the table, and the Lilywhites now prepare to host Everton next Saturday, but they will be without both of Yves Bissouma and Destiny Udogie against the Toffees due to suspension. body check tags ::
