BALE’S BACK WITH MOUR TO SHOW
Welsh wizard forces own goal as he shows Jose big things to come
GARETH BALE was back in the old routine at the new Tottenham Stadium l ast night as Jose Mourinho’s side revamped side opened Group J with a professional win.
The Welsh wing wizard celebrated his first start of his second North London spell with a low a cross which led to a first- half own goal.
Lucas Moura had opened the scoring and substitute Son Heung- min added a third late on as Spurs showed they now have the strength in depth to win this trophy for Mourinho for a third time.
Against better sides, though, they will have to play for the whole 90 minutes.
Bale’s last European appearance for Spurs was in April 2013 in a team which i ncluded Emmanuel Adebayor and William Gallas.
They drew 2- 2 in this competition with
Basel , who had Mo line- up.
Last night the £ 85million star lined up in a team with eight changes from the weekend collapse to West Ham and Harry Kane left on the bench.
Bale shook off the rust in n his f i rst club start since June, ne, when Real Madrid hosted d
Mallorca , before he was replaced after 62 minutes.
He operated down the right of an attacking three wi t h E r i k L a mel a a n d
Mo u r a b e h i n d o n - l o a n
Benfica forward Carlos Vinicius cius to show the f i repower now Mourinho’s disposal.
But the Portuguese would have been as pleased with a first clean sheet of the season.
Tottenham are now unbeaten in nine games since the opening Premier League defeat to Everton, including four Europa League wins where they have scored 14
Salah
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t heir goals. After saying before the game he wanted no more “stories about Spursy” after conceding three late goals to the Hammers, Mourinho al s o s ai d he wanted early Europa League wins to take the pressure off in “crazy” December. Bayern Munich scored seven here last October before RB Leipzig beat them out in the f i rst knockout round i n February.
LASK, from Linz, play in a different Bundesliga and a r e n o t a s f l u e n t i n European football.
Including the on- loan Bale, Mourinho started with all six of his summer signings.
Tott enham hope Vinicius i s t he answer to their back- up striker issues but his f irst contribution was more Roberto Soldado than Gary Lineker.
Bale relased Matt Doherty down the right but the unmarked Brazilian headed the cross wide f rom si x yards out.
Vinicius then provided a reverse pass from the left worthy of Glenn Hoddle to set up his compatriot Moura for the opening goal after 18 minutes.
The lead was doubled nine minutes l ater when new l eftback Sergio Reguilon’s surging r un al l owed Lamela to feed Bale.
He crossed and LASK d e f e n d e r A n d r e s Andrade sliced the ball into the roof of his own net.
LASK were leading t h e A u s t r i a n Bundesliga going into l o ckdown but were docked six points after restarting training too e a r l y, a nd f i ni s h e d fourth.
The timings of some of their tackles was e q u a l l y a s b a d although Andreas Gruber did force rce Joe Hart into a fine save just before re halftime ( left).
Mourinho ( right) issued a wake- ake- up call to his players in a drowsy second half by sending ng on Son, Dele Alli i and Mousa S i s s o ko after 62 minutes. tes.
Spurs created ted a number of half alf chances but the he ball would not t fall to them.
Alli failed to b e a t ke e p e r
A l e x a n d r Schlager when sent through on goal b y Vi n i c i u s . S o n showed him how to do i t by sl otti ng h o m e a f t e r a n o t h e r a s s i s t from Vinicius.