Victor Osimhen ends Tottenham’s perfect Europa League start

Tottenham saw their 100% winning record in the Europa League snapped by Galatasary this evening.

Angelos Postecoglou’s side, who ended with ten men, suffered a 3-2 loss at RAMS Park, but the Premier League side were ultimately flattered by the scoreline.

Galatasaray registered 28 shots on goal to Spurs’ five, while ten were on target. It was their most faced in a game under manager Postecoglou; it was the most shots faced by an English team in a Europa League group stage match since Everton faced 39 against Wolfsburg in November 2014.

Tottenham had three efforts on target, with two belonging to Will Lankshear, who not only equalised but picked up two yellow cards. In doing so, Lankshear (19y 201d) became the third youngest player to both score and be sent off in a Europa League game after Aleksandar Mitrovic for Partizan Belgrade in November 2012 (18y 67d) and Federico Chiesa for Fiorentina in December 2016 (19y 44d).

Lankshear cancelled Yunus Akgün’s spectacular opener, but it was then Victor Osimhen’s show. The on-loan Napoli marksman netted a first-half brace to put the game on its head. He’s now scored 12 goals across his 23 starts in major European competition, netting more times against English opposition than any other nation (five – two vs. Tottenham, two vs. Leicester and one vs. Chelsea).

A man down the Lilywhites managed to pull one back through Dominic Solanke, who has now scored as many goals in his last two appearances (3) as across his first 12 outings for Spurs (3).

Cole’s point regarding Radu Dragusin is a salient one. Of those playing the full 90 minutes for Spurs, he posted the worst passing accuracy (71%). He struggled against Osimhen, who had seven attempts on goal with five on target, plus registering ten touches in the opposition box, more than anyone on either team.

Carelessly giving away the ball was prevalent in Tottenham’s performance, with no player registering 90% passing accuracy, plus the entire team’s score was 79.6%, and it was that lackadaisical factor which Postecoglou rued post-match.

“In the first half we gave the ball away too much. We lacked composure and we allowed Galatasaray to get a foothold in the game and we paid the price for that,” he told reporters.

He added: “I just felt it was self-inflicted. We had real simple solutions out there to keep the ball. It wasn’t that hard. We showed it with ten men. We just needed to be stronger on the ball and play the kind of football we play every week.

“Maybe it was a little bit the changes I made and the environment and atmosphere, but the moments that stick out to me was giving the ball away. We were playing through them quite easily with ten men but with 11 men we had nowhere near that conviction and that was disappointing.”

Tonight’s result was only Tottenham’s fourth defeat in 18 UEFA Europa League group and league-phase away matches. Next up for Spurs is a visit from Roma on November 28.