Gridlock on the streets of north London created a temper of pre-match chaos. Qarabag have been caught up in site visitors and didn’t make it to the stadium till quarter-hour earlier than the scheduled kick-off at 8pm.
The Azeri champions had stayed in a resort 12 miles away in Stratford, however rail and highway closures mixed to wreak havoc on all these certain for N17, together with hundreds of supporters.
TNT Sport pundits Peter Crouch and Glenn Hoddle needed to bounce out of their automobile and set out into the pouring rain on foot. ‘We gave up with the automotive,’ stated Crouch. ‘We have been head down and legging it by way of.’ Hoddle added: ‘Peter ran, and I limped.’
Qarabag are usually not the primary to be caught out by the notoriously congested streets round Tottenham, whose earlier European residence fixture was delayed by 10 minutes when each groups arrived late as a consequence of unhealthy site visitors.
That was towards AC Milan within the second leg of a final 16 Champions League tie in March 2023, when Antonio Conte’s Spurs workforce have been unable to overturn a 1-0 deficit from the primary leg and crashed out.
Tottenham eased to a cushty victory over Qarabag, with Dominic Solanke among the many scorers
Defender Radun Dragusin was despatched off after seven minutes with the rating nonetheless at 0-0
Brennan Johnson, nonetheless, received the ball rolling together with his third objective in as many video games for Spurs
The Qarabag workforce bus lastly arrived with the assistance of a police escort alongside the final mile of the journey. Lengthy-serving head coach Gurban Gurbanov appeared distinctly unimpressed as he disembarked however agreed to organize as rapidly as potential and purpose for a kick off at 8.35pm.
In reality, it was two minutes later by the point they received below manner and the guests began brightly as if thrilled to be shifting freely as soon as once more. Spurs have been caught out by their tempo and decreased to 10 males inside solely seven minutes.
Dragusin’s contact was poor as he collected a move from Micky van de Ven and Juninho pounced with terrific pace off the mark, touching the ball clear and set off in pursuit.
He appeared set to speed up away in direction of objective when he turned entangled with Dragusin’s determined efforts to get well and was taken down. French referee Willy Delajod produced a purple card with out hesitation.
The Romanian trudged off and Postecoglou reshuffled. Off got here Lucas Bergvall, the teenage midfielder changed by left again Future Udogie, with Ben Davies shifting into the centre alongside Van de Ven.
Postecoglou had made six modifications to the workforce that began the Premier League win towards Brentford on Saturday however chosen his strongest ahead line and it was to his credit score that he stored all three of them on after the purple card.
Reward for his threat got here rapidly when Dominic Solanke and Pape Matar Sarr compelled an error from Julio Romao and Johnson produced a scientific end, first time from Solanke’s move.
Johnson missed an opportunity to increase the lead earlier than he was changed at half time. The Wales winger received a race to a move from Archie Grey and nudged it previous Qarabag goalkeeper Mateusz Kochalski on the nook of the penalty space.
It was a not easy, it required an prompt shot from a tough place with defenders scrambling again to cowl and Johnson rolled his shot huge.
Qarabag, seasoned European campaigners who gave eventual runners-up Bayer Leverkusen a critical scare within the last-16 final season, have been prone on the again to Tottenham’s urgent however all the time harmful on the break particularly as soon as they’d the numerical edge.
They completed the primary half on prime with out making their probabilities depend. Brazilian striker Juninho wriggled away from Davies solely to slip the most effective of them huge when he should have scored.
