Tottenham vs Swansea match report: Faint scare for Bafetimbi Gomis clouds Spurs win

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Bafetimbi Gomis of Swansea City is stretchered off at White Hart Lane (GETTY IMAGES)

Swansea City’s game at White Hart Lane tonight was entirely overshadowed by their striker Bafetimbi Gomis fainting on the pitch in the first half and receiving five minutes of medical attention before being stretchered off.

Just six minutes had been played, and Nacer Chadli had just put Spurs ahead, when Gomis appeared to faint in the centre circle. The players hurriedly waved the medical staff and paramedics on. Gomis received emergency attention, and was given oxygen, although he was conscious when he was carried off to a supportive round of applause five minutes later.

Gomis was not taken to hospital at first but stayed in the medical room at White Hart Lane. At half-time Swansea officials said that he was “fine”, and that they were familiar with Gomis’ condition.

Garry Monk, the Swansea manager, said of Gomis after the match: “He’s fine. Coming off the pitch he was fine and he was talking. He wanted to stay on the pitch.”

“We are all well aware of it, it’s part of his history, and he has had all the medical checks you can possibly do. It’s to do with low blood pressure. It is something he lives with all his whole life. It looks worse than it is.”

Andros Townsend celebrates scoring Spurs' third (GETTY IMAGES)

Gomis has a history of ‘vasovagal attacks’, when the heartbeat slows down and there is a temporary interruption of blood supply to the brain. This has been a problem throughout the French player’s career and he collapsed three times in the few months after he first signed for Lyon in the summer of 2009.

The Lyon club doctor Emmanuel Ohrant, insisted that the club had always known about his condition and that it was compatible with playing professional football.

“We got his whole medical file, and I can testify very exhaustive medical examinations have been made, and he has been put under extreme monitoring,” Ohrant explained. “The final conclusion is there is no contraindication to high level sport. People are more worried than he is.”

This was certainly a very worrying incident for everyone at White Hart Lane and it was impossible not to think about Fabrice Muamba, who collapsed on the pitch here three years ago having suffered a cardiac arrest. Thankfully Gomis’ condition did not last night appear to be as serious.

The football match rather felt like an afterthought, although Tottenham played well and demonstrated that, three days on from their League Cup final defeat to Chelsea at Wembley, they still have energy in their legs.

Pochettino, as if to prove that, picked the same team which lost on Sunday, and from the start they played with the pace and intensity that their head coach demands of them. It only took five minutes for Spurs to take the lead. Christian Eriksen worked the ball briskly out to Danny Rose on the left, who had time to swing in a perfect cross. Chadli escaped from Neil Taylor and finished with a perfect cushioned volley into the opposite corner.

It was immediately after Chadli’s goal that Gomis fainted and when the game eventually restarted the players looked understandably distracted.

Swansea soon equalised when Spurs failed to respond to Gylfi Sigurdsson hitting the post with a free-kick, Jan Vertonghen miskicked a simple clearance and Ki Sung-yeung beat Hugo Lloris from a tight angle.

Little else happened in a cautious first half and it was only once the second half began, and it was known that Gomis was fine, that the game began in earnest. Spurs were the more incisive team and scored twice.

They went ahead when Eriksen drifted in from the left, wriggling away from challenges before setting up Ryan Mason who broke into the box and finished powerfully.

Swansea continued to push for a second equaliser and Hugo Lloris had to make a reaction save from Federico Fernandez. But Spurs broke forward, Nabil Bentaleb feeding Andros Townsend who charged down the left. Townsend cut inside, away from Kyle Naughton, and finished into the roof of the net.

In the penultimate minute, Sigurdsson converted Jefferson Montero’s cross at the far post, leading to a nervous conclusion for Pochettino, in which Lloris had to dive full-length to deny Fernandez. But Spurs emerged with three points, even if they did not feel especially important.