Tottenham begin European campaign with a 3-0 victory at home

On Thursday night, Tottenham Hotspur welcomed Azerbaijani side Qarabag to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the opening night of the "league phase" campaign, which will consist of eight games. The game was delayed for 35 minutes due to severe trouble disruption.

For the task at hand, Ange Postecoglu went with a lineup of; Vicario; Gray, Dragusin, van de Ven, Davies; Sarr, Bissouma, Bergvall; Johnson, Son, Solanke.

After just six minutes, Dragusin was caught on the ball and brought down Juninho, giving the referee no choice but to give the Romanian centre half his marching orders, and Spurs were down to ten. 

Sadly for Bergvall, he was the one sacrificed as a result, with Udogie replacing him, and Davies moving to centre half. He would have been really excited to show what he can do in this game. 

Immediately after, Spurs won the ball back in the Qarabg half, and Solanke fed the ball to Johnson who slotted the ball into the far corner with a really smart side-footed finish. 

After 19 minutes, Qarabag were in on on goal but Udogie’s recovery run just did enough to make Bayramov lose his balance and fluff a shot. 

Eight minutes later, Johnson took the ball around the onrushing goalkeeper after a ball from Gray, but he could not make a proper connection as the ball bounced and the ball dragged wide. 

Just over five minutes before the break, Juninho somehow placed the ball wide when unmarked from around eight yards out, giving Spurs another scare.

In first-half stoppage time, Davies made a similar error to Dragusin, but Vicario was there to sweep and bail the Welshman out, and Spurs went into the break one goal to the good. 

Despite the red card, Spurs generally looked to still dominate the ball in the first half, with 60% of the ball. The possession took the sting out of the game and stopped an end-to-end affair that their visitors would have wanted to try and take advantage of the red. 

Tottenham begin European campaign with a 3-0 victory at home

For the second half, Ange introduced Kulusevski for Johnson. 

Seven minutes in, a corner fell to Sarr at the back post, and the Senegalese international found the back of the net despite Andrade’s best efforts on the line.

A few minutes later, Bissouma was deemed to have committed a foul in the box and Qarabag had a penalty. Bayramov took and hit the bar, and Spurs maintained their two-goal lead. 

Ange’s side couldn’t fully clear their lines, and Vicario was forced into a save. Straight after, there was a break and Solanke was denied after being teed up by Son. 

After 65 minutes, Juninho smacked the post for the visitors who were still pushing as hard as possible.

Not long after, a curling effort from Son was weakly parried away and Solanke was Johnny-on-the-spot to make it three goals and three points for Spurs.

Immediately after, the skipper was taken off for Werner and Bissouma made way for Bentancur. 

With twelve minutes left, Juninho powered home a header but was adjudged to have been in an offside position.

Ange made a popular substitution with around six minutes of normal time left when Mikey Moore replaced the final goalscorer Solanke. After the red card, fans were worried he would not see any game time but there was a clear enough game state in the end, as Spurs ran out 3-0 victors.

The clean sheet, only Spurs' second of the season, comes as very welcome. Whilst it may have come about more by luck than by design, you would have been buzzing with a clean sheet to go along with three goals when Dragusin was walking down the tunnel very early on. There cannot be many complaints.

This win puts Spurs in fourth place out of 36 in the new league phase.