Tottenham made a perfect start to their Europa League campaign as they beat Qarabag 3-0, despite playing with ten men for more than 80 minutes.
Kick-off was delayed by 35 minutes in north London due to “severe travel disruption”, and it was a disastrous opening for Spurs when the match finally did get underway. Radu Dragusin was shown a straight red card in the early stages for losing the ball and then bringing down Juninho as the last man, and it left Spurs facing a more awkward night on home soil than most would have expected.
Brennan Johnson, though, continued his impressive form to opening the scoring, and Pape Matar Sarr doubled the lead after the break as he volleyed in from a corner. Qarabag created chances throughout and should immediately have halved the deficit, when Yves Bissouma gave away a penalty, but Toral Bayramov’s spot-kick flicked the top of the bar and flew over. That, unsurprisingly, proved to be a decisive miss, as Dominic Solanke then put the match to bed with just over 20 minutes remaining, turning home from close range after Heung-min Son’s effort had been saved.
