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Tottenham Hotspur started their Europa League campaign with an impressive 3-0 home win over Qarabag despite playing 83 minutes with 10 men.
After kick-off was delayed due to the late arrival of Qarabag’s team bus, Radu Dragusin’s night lasted only seven minutes when he received a red card.
It failed to significantly knock Ange Postecoglou’s team off their stride though, with Brennan Johnson able to score for a third successive match five minutes later before Pape Sarr doubled the hosts’ advantage in the 52nd minute.
Qarabag did regularly threaten and Tural Bayramov fired a spot-kick over after Sarr’s strike, which all but ended the visitors’ hopes and Dominic Solanke made it back-to-back goals with 22 minutes left to ensure Tottenham earned a third win in a row before Sunday’s trip to Manchester United.
Spurs were back in Europe for the first time in 18 months, but kick-off was delayed due to “severe” local transport issues which meant the Qarabag team bus only arrived minutes before the scheduled 8pm start.
When play did finally start, Tottenham faced early problems when Dragusin was dismissed. The defender let the ball run across him and was dispossessed near the halfway by Juninho before he cynically pulled back the Qarabag forward to leave referee Willy Delajod with no choice but to send him off.
Teenage midfielder Lucas Bergvall was the unfortunate Tottenham player to make way for left-back Destiny Udogie but he had barely reached his seat by the time the hosts went ahead.
Sarr initiated the pressure on Qarabag’s back four before Solanke won possession from Julio Romao and played in Johnson, who provided a calm finish into the bottom corner.
It gave Tottenham a precious lead and continued Johnson’s rich vein of form since he deactivated his Instagram account following abuse after the home loss to Arsenal.
Postecoglou’s team dominated possession despite their numerical disadvantage but Qarabag, who were minutes away from knocking out Bayer Leverkusen in the round of 16 last season, were able to regularly run through their two-man midfield.
After Bahlul Mustafazade ran through and fluffed his shot, Spurs threatened again when Johnson latched onto Archie Gray’s impressive ball but the in-form forward could only side-foot wide from 18 yards after he got past Qarabag goalkeeper Mateusz Kochalski.
The half ended with a flurry of opportunities for the visitors. Juninho inexplicably side-footed wide from Elvin Jafarguliyev’s cross with only Guglielmo Vicario to beat, before the Italian slid in to deny the same player after he had tackled Ben Davies in an incident similar to Dragusin’s red card.
Dejan Kulusevski replaced Johnson and instantly had an impact with a fine run down the right able to force a corner, which created Tottenham’s second goal seven minutes into the second half.
Kochalski, under pressure from Davies, could only get a faint touch on Kulusevski’s corner and Sarr was on hand to volley home at the back post.
Spurs’ joy appeared short-lived three minutes later when Yves Bissouma caught Jafarguliyev inside the area but Bayramov drilled his penalty over.
There were further chances for Juninho, who fired straight at Vicario and sent another effort against the post from a narrow angle, before Tottenham wrapped up the points.
Sarr and Kulusevski combined to tee up Son Heung-min and while his curler was saved by Kochalski, Solanke was on hand to slide home for his first Europa League goal.
Son limped off minutes later in a rare sour note on a positive night for Tottenham.
