Tottenham Hotspur kick off their UEFA Champions league (UCL) campaign with a hard-fought 1-0 victory at home against the Yellow submarines.
This was Thomas Frank’s first game in charge on the European stage, and he couldn’t have asked for a better start.
Playing in the UCL as winners of Europe’s second tier competition, Spurs got off to a great start opening the scoring just after 4 minutes where Villarreal goalkeeper Luiz Júnior unfortunately turned in Lucas Bergvall cross into his net. The Spanish side looked to immediately respond as former Arsenal man Nicholas Pepe drove into the Tottenham defense before cutting inside and curled his effort just past the post.
Thomas Frank speaking on the second half spell and why he made some adjustments; “Yeah um and and you know Joao is is a he’s a very good player and um i think he stabilised it uh more in the middle of the pitch. Um so that helped definitely, yeah “
Pepe looked to be the danger man for the Yellow submarines as he pounced on a poor clearance from the hosts before picking out Tajon Buchanan, but the Canadian let the Spurs defence off by scewing his shot wide.
As the HT drew closer the home side thought they had an opportunity to extend their lead from the penalty spot, where Richarlison was brought down inthe box, but following a VAR review, the spotkick was not given, keeping the scoreline 1-0 at the interval.
By: Philip Tandoh
