It didn’t go perfectly according to plan, but Tottenham Hotspur will take a two goal advantage into Norway next week for a chance at a major European cup final. Tottenham got goals from Brennan Johnson and James Maddison to go along with a second half penalty from Dominic Solanke to take a 3-0 lead over visitors Bodø/Glimt in the first leg of the Europa League semifinal at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Spurs looked good for their lead as well, but switched off late in the second half, allowing Ulrik Saltnes to pull one back for the visitors.
The late goal by Bodø/Glimt took a little of the shine off of what was otherwise a solid win. Tottenham might have taken a virtually unassailable lead into next week’s return fixture in Norway, but settled instead for a two goal advantage. The final score was 3-1.
Here are my quick takeaways from the match.
Match reactions
- Tottenham’s likely strategy was to get the ball wide and pump in crosses all day, and that sure seemed to be a great strategy! Richarlison had a lovely cross to the back post, and then headed another ball back across the box to an open Johnson to put Spurs ahead.
- Curious why Spurs weren’t pressing Bodø/Glimt more at the start of the match. Seemed content to let them have the ball, though they didn’t do much with it.
- Dom Solanke had some frustrating moments in this match, but he was really using his strength to shrug off B/G defenders. It kept a number of moves going that otherwise were likely to get cut out.
- Pedro Porro did almost nothing in the first half hour of this match and then put a ball on a platter to set up James Maddison for Spurs’ second. What a hit.
- Remember last year when we kept saying how Richarlison was an ideal Ange-Ball player? Well, we’re not really playing Ange-Ball and we haven’t seen much of Richy due to injuries, but Pombo worked his tail-feathers off out there. Really impressive performance in the first half. Assume the halftime substitution for Mathys Tel was for minutes management and fitness reasons.
- On the penalty — I feel like that shouldn’t be a penalty in that circumstance but by rule it’s a penalty and once it went to VAR and then the monitor you knew it was going to be given. I am not a fan of the stutter-delay penalty, but credit to Dom — he took it well.
- NGL fam, I’m worried about James Maddison. He seemed to be walking okay, no limp, as he came off the field but went straight down the tunnel. Hopefully it’s a minor twinge or a knock and not anything serious. And we need his creativity.
- Up 3-0 in the second half, there’s not much to do but keep it tidy, try not to do anything stupid, and for god’s sake don’t concede. Welp. A lucky goal — Saltnes’ shot deflected off of Rodrigo Bentancur and in — but Spurs also switched off defensively to allow that shot, Bodø/Glimt’s first on target.
- The main difference between the two sides in this one was that Spurs just had a lot more athletes and out-athleted them in possession. Helps that they were missing five players, including Patrick Berg — I’m willing to guess the match in Bodø will be substantially different next week and he late B/G goal makes the reverse fixture suddenly a lot scarier than it was, especially on their weird arctic plastic pitch.
- In the other semifinal, Manchester United put three past ten-man Athletic Bilbao at San Mamés, and things are shaping up for Tottenham to play a major European cup final against another team from the Premier League. What could possibly go wrong?
- All that said — this was a good win! We should celebrate when Tottenham Hotspur put together good performances and win football matches, especially this season. The home-and-home tie is still theirs to lose.