Tottenham finally made an impact back in the Champions League with a hectic 3-2 win over ten-man Eintracht Frankfurt, which could go down as the night Antonio Conte’s attack finally clicked into gear this season.
Conte’s side returned to the top of their group, and the head coach will hope they have also returned to the form after a series of dogged but underwhelming displays at the start of the campaign.
Heung-min Son scored twice, including a sublime volley, to offer hope that he has really turned a corner, and Harry Kane was also sharp, scoring and winning a penalty in between the Korean’s fine finishes.
But an encouraging performance was undone in the final 25 minutes, when Spurs’ intensity dropped and they conceded a sloppy second goal.
At 3-2, Kane blazed another penalty high over the bar and, inevitably, the England captain’s two misses from the spot this season will now be raised in Qatar during next month’s World Cup.
Perhaps Frankfurt are too limited a side to draw any major conclusions from Spurs’ attacking display, and the visitors were reduced to ten-men on the hour when Tuta was dismissed for two fouls in Son in a matter of minutes, which both earned bookings.
Still, after last week’s turgid stalemate in Germany, this was like watching Spurs on fastforward.
They responded superbly to falling behind in chaotic circumstances, when Daichi Kamada’s finished after a mistake by Eric Dier, to effectively wrap up the game before the half-hour mark with three goals in 16 minutes.
Conte naturally saved legs for Everton on Saturday after the red card, making five changes in the second half, although it was a nervy finale, thanks to Farride Alidou’s 87th-minute with a header from a corner.
In that opening spell, Spurs’ star front two were electric, showing no signs of heavy legs amidst the gruelling schedule as they ran at Frankfurt at 1-0 down.
The equaliser was a classic Kane-Son combination, the Korean running clear from Kane’s perfectly-weighted pass and finishing coolly after a tentative first touch.
Son’s second was even better, a stunning first-time volley with his left foot after Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg burst down the right and stood up a cross. You could hear the thump from the press box as Son connected and angled a finish across Kevin Trapp.
In between, Kane won and scored a penalty with a forceful run into the box which drew a clumsy foul from Kristijan Jakic.
The only remotely comparable Son performance this season was the 6-3 win over Leicester when he scored a hat-trick from the bench, and he nearly matched that feat here but Trapp saved with an outstretched foot, and later palmed away a long-range effort.
Son’s Leicester display has felt like something of a false dawn in the last few weeks but his confidence was obvious here, and he was such a handful that he helped Spurs finish the game against ten men for the second time in this Champions League group.
Kane also put in one of his sharpest displays of the season but his second penalty miss, after substitute Bryan Gil was fouled, was uncharacteristic and sloppy.
He seemed to lean back as he fired over the bar after the Spaniard was tripped.
It was tempting to wonder if Conte’s Spurs are back, at least until they dropped off in the final 25 minutes, allowing Aidou to get above Emerson Royal from a corner and set up a nervous finale. Perhaps their lack of intensity, with five subs on the pitch, was understandable given the schedule.
The question is perhaps whether Conte’s Spurs have ever been away, or if their brilliant front two have just taken a while to find their feet.
Either way, this felt like a night when Conte’s Spurs looked menacing again, at least going forward, even if it was far from perfect.
