The vibes at Tottenham Hotspur have been about as toxic as I’ve ever seen them, but nothing puts things right like a comfortable home win in the Champions League. That’s exactly what Spurs got — first half goals from Cuti Romero and Dominic Solanke put Spurs up two goals by halftime over a ten-man Dortmund, and while the second half was slightly more fraught, Tottenham did enough to see the match out, winning comfortably over a Dortmund side that has only one Bundesliga loss so far this season. The final score was 2-0.
Say what you want about Thomas Frank and his job prospects, today he got it exactly right despite a ton of absences. Micky van de Ven was one of the most notable, as he served a one-match suspension for yellow card accumulation. Kevin Danso replaced him on the right side of the defense, with Cuti sliding over to Micky’s usual position. More unusually, Djed Spence started as a left winger, with Destiny Udogie at left back behind him. Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall anchored the midfield, with Xavi Simons, Wilson Odobert, and Dom Solanke, making his first start all season, ahead. Pedro Porro was Pedro Porro.
Spurs came out flying, attacking Dortmund from the opening whistle and looking to get balls into the box. They broke through via a set piece just 14 in, with Wilson Odobert squaring a ball to Cuti Romero’s boot, which he easily converted to put Spurs ahead. The match changed abruptly ten minutes later after Dortmund defender was sent off for a VAR-assisted dangerous tackle on Odobert. Spurs pressed their advantage and went two up late in the first half through Dominic Solanke, his first goal of the season.
Up comfortably and also up a player, Tottenham took their foot off the gas slightly, showing a little more patience for opportunities in front of Dortmund’s goal rather than pushing hard for a third. Part of that was dictated by Dortmund, who came out in the second half pressing higher and trying to disrupt and discombobulate Tottenham in possession. Lucas Bergvall was forced to the sidelines after a hefty challenge with Emre Can that forced his substitution for teenage debutante Jun’ai Byfield. Randal Kolo Muani later came on as a late sub for Solanke.
Here are my match reactions for the game.
Match reactions
- Final xG: TOT 2.23 – 0.38 DOR. That’s a paddlin’.
- Can we play continental European opponents every week? We seem to be pretty good at it.
- Starting Djed Spence at left wing I think suggests that Thomas Frank has entered his Tim Sherwood Era. That hopefully also means, like with Sherwood, he won’t be with the team for much longer. (That said, Djed Spence spent much of the match absolutely destroying Dortmund’s fullback 1v1 so who’s the rube? Maybe me!)
- The opening 10 minutes of this match showed more attacking vim and vigor than I’ve seen from Tottenham in probably a few weeks of Premier League matches. Lots of entries into the box and they were from carries and passes, not crosses! Is this what Frankball is supposed to look like?
- Is Cuti Romero our best scorer? Lovely strike from a good centered ball by Odobert, well taken and well finished. I honestly thought it was going to be a clown shoes moment after Odobert screwed up the initial ball off the corner. Well done to him to control it and pick out Cuti.
- Hypothesis: is Tottenham doing better in continental competition mostly because the Premier League is just THAT good? Because Spurs sure looked like they weren’t having many issues with a Dortmund side that’s lost once in the Bundesliga all season, and the visitors really struggled with the pace of the match in the first half.
- Look, I dunno if that’s a red-worthy tackle on Svensson or not, he certainly didn’t intend to do that and it looked like he was in the process of falling over when he made contact with Odobert. I’d be pretty upset if that call went against us, but holy smokes isn’t it nice to actually have a call go in our favor for once? I’ll take it.
- Xavi Simons looked incredible in this match. It’s kind of astounding what you can do when you get your best player the ball in and around the box. And he was smiling! He looks nice when he smiles, I wish he smiled more.
- Solanke’s goal was actually hilarious because I really thought he fucked that up. He seemed to mistime the run and then kicked the ball off his back foot, which deflected off his front foot and then off the post and in. They all count! But lol…lmao
- I was worried a bit about the midfield pairing of Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray but they worked really well together. It’s the best we’ve seen the midfield in a hot minute (though competition and man advantage obviously is also a factor).
- If there’s a dark lining to this cloud, it’s the apparent injury to Lucas Bergvall, who picked up what looked like a painful knock in a challenge with Emre Can. He was subbed off for 17-year-old defender Jun’ai Byfield, who made his full club debut — we last saw him in preseason against Luton Town. Byfield, btw, is a big dude and looked pretty competent out there.
- Kolo Muani — man. I dunno. He was through on goal at least three times and flubbed his lines each time. Feels like an encapsulation of his entire Spurs career.
- Really not that happy with how Spurs seemed content to sit on their lead for much of the second half. That’s the Frank-ball we’ve seen, and I wanted more of the Frank-ball we saw in the first half. But you can’t argue with the results.
- Not sure what’s weirder — that we’re currently fourth in the Champions League table after City’s loss to Bodø/Glimt and PSG losing at Sporting, or that it’s a deserved ranking based on their overall xG!
- Spurs will have to take care of business at Eintracht Frankfurt in the final match of the stage, but even a result on the road might be enough to get them through to the next round with a bye. They’ve clinched progression to at least the playoffs. Can’t really ask for much more.
