Everton defender Michael Keane shared a surprising claim about his stunning equaliser following their draw with Tottenham Hotspur.
The 30-year-old revealed that the effort wasn't a fluke after pulling off similar moments of quality on the training pitch at Finch Farm. The importance of his effort against the north London club will be greater after he earned Sean Dyche's side a point with his stoppage-time piledriver to help them out of the relegation zone.
Harry Kane dispatched his spot-kick after Keane had dangled a foot out and made contact with Cristian Romero. It handed the visitors the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the Blues going down to 10 men, after Abdoulaye Doucoure's red card. Lucas Moura's late lunge saw David Coote hand out a second red card of the match and even the playing field in the dying embers.
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With just a minute of normal time remaining, Keane stepped out of defence with a sight on Hugo Lloris' goal and unleashed a dipping effort leaving the returning Frenchman rooted to the spot. The former Burnley defender admitted to Sky Sports after the match that he was "buzzing" to atone for his error that broke the deadlock.
"You won’t believe me but every now and then I do hit the ball like that in training so to do it again was nice," he said. "My teammates had been expecting it for a while so to see one come off is amazing. To be honest after giving the penalty away I was just buzzing to make up for it. I think the team fought really well, obviously we were a man down for the best part of half an hour and it was tough. Yeah, buzzing.
"I remember is Ben [Godfrey] getting the ball and I saw the space opened up in the middle of the pitch, I thought ‘go on then.’ It’s opened right up and yeah, just had a go. To be honest with you I didn’t feel it come off my foot, it was that sweet. It was nice, I was in shock a bit.
"I couldn’t believe it happened. I bring it onto my right foot, saw the gap and obviously it’s not easy, a bit of luck involved but it’s a good strike. It dipped like it was a volley. It’ll take me a long time to catch one sweeter than that.
"I think it could be really important, this stage of the season every point is massive," said Keane on how important he feels his goal could be in Everton's battle to beat the drop.
"Every contribution could be huge come the end of the season so I hope it turns out to be really important. In general we’re disappointed not to win tonight. Coming into the game we wanted to win, we really believed we could win. How the game panned out we’re happy with a draw in the end but I think we’re heading in the right direction.
"That’s four games unbeaten now, six points from the four - three draws in that - but I think it shows the mentality. We’ve come from behind in a few of them games and maybe it's a mentality we didn’t have in the past. We’re moving in the right direction and if we carry on playing like that and applying ourselves like we have been doing in the last few months it’ll give us the best chance possible."
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