BALE US OUT!
Gareth flies in today to kick-start season as Spurs scrape past nine men
TOTTENHAM narrowly avoided an embarrassing europa League exit to nine- man Lokomotiv Plovdiv last night, as Gareth Bale jets in today to seal his return to the north London club.
The Bulgarian minnows took the lead in the 71st minute against a Spurs side which included harry
Kane and Son heung-min. But two red cards in a minute for the hosts enabled Jose mourinho’s side to sneak a late victory through Kane’s penalty leveller and Tanguy ndombele’s 85thminute winner.
Spurs travel to macedonia to face Shkendija next Thursday.
As Tottenham tied up the details of their audacious swoop to bring Gareth Bale back to north London, last year’s big-money transfer coup finally stirred.
Tanguy Ndombele, an exciting addition when he arrived for £54million from Lyon but a disappointment ever since, climbed off the bench to score the winning goal against Lokomotiv Plovdiv.
It was his first under Jose Mourinho and his first for nearly a year.
And it secured the dubious reward of a place in the third qualifying round of the Europa League and a trip to play FK shkendija, in the city of Tetovo, in North Macedonia, next Thursday, just 48 hours after a Carabao Cup tie at Leyton Orient.
It might have been worse, however, because with only 10 minutes remaining, Mourinho’s team were a goal down staring at the possibility of an embarrassingly premature European exit at the hands of the Bulgarian Cup winners.
The tie turned in a turbulent few seconds when the home team were reduced to nine men and Kane levelled from the penalty spot, leaving Ndombele to grab the winner in the 85th minute and savour a few rare words of praise from the boss.
‘Tanguy is in a process of evolution,’ said Mourinho. ‘Last season he wasn’t. He was in a situation where I couldn’t see evolution. He is training very, very well. He is recovering from his injury, recovering physically and today he gave us what we needed in those last 10 minutes.
‘In this moment I believe in Tanguy. I never had doubts about his quality, never. In some moments, I had doubts about his motivation, his commitment, his professional attitude. In this moment I believe in him. I think Tanguy can do well for us.’
Tottenham dominated from the outset. steven Bergwijn rattled the bar and wanted a penalty when tripped by Argentinian defender Lucas Masoero.
Bergwijn appeared to have a good case but German referee
Harm Osmers disagreed and there was no VAR in operation.
son Heung-min missed a good chance at the near post, clipping over from a cross by Ben Davies, as spurs found a better rhythm after the interval.
Kane forced a save from goalkeeper Martin Lukov and fired a free-kick over.
Outside the empty stadium, Plovdiv supporters tried to encourage their heroes with a display of fireworks and Georgi Minchev responded by firing them ahead.
‘Davinson sanchez made one mistake to give them a corner and from the corner they scored,’ said Mourinho. ‘It was a moment for them to dream and a moment for us to fear for our future in the competition.’
Hugo Lloris made a crucial save to prevent Minchev making it 2-0 and as spurs poured forward, the pressure finally forced Plovdiv into errors of judgment.
Dinis Almeida was sent off, a straight red card, for using his hands to block a shot from Davies and he was quickly followed down the tunnel by team-mate Birsent Karagaren who received his second yellow of the night, for kicking a hole in the penalty spot. Kane was unmoved and converted his penalty to equalise.
‘If we go to extra time it would have been impossible for them to hold us for 30 minutes,’ said Mourinho. ‘But we started pushing after 1-1 and we scored the second and game over.’
It was an extraordinary ending, although few Tottenham fans saw any of it, because Premier sports, who charge £11.99 a month for a subscription, lost the live feed.
They missed the closing stages of the first half and most of the second half, including all three goals and the two red cards, and issued an apology blaming the Bulgarian broadcasters.
‘We are sorry for the picture break-up on the game,’ they said, in a tweet. ‘There is an issue with the host broadcasters’ satellite uplink that is affecting all international takers. We are working with the supplier to resolve.’
The live action was replaced with a messaging promising to be ‘Back soon’. If Bale had made the mistake of investing £11.99 to cast his eye over the new spurs, he might have thought it was a message designed just for him.