'Caught for 2 and a half hours' - Qarabag's Tottenham nightmare

As European nights go, Qarabag’s couldn’t have turned out a lot worse.

The crew from Azerbaijan suffered site visitors chaos, a surprising penalty miss and a bunch of spurned possibilities as 10-man Tottenham survived numerous scares to open their Europa League marketing campaign with victory.

Regardless of staying a brief distance away in Stratford, Qarabag had been affected by rail and highway closures, and arrived at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at 19:45 – simply quarter-hour earlier than the deliberate kick-off – forcing a delayed begin till 20:35.

Uefa laws ask for groups to reach at the very least 75 minutes previous to kick-off, with offenders dealing with attainable punishment.

The London Overground, which is the first path to the stadium from different elements of London, was additionally down, forcing 1000’s of supporters to stroll from so far as Liverpool Road station, two hours away.

They weren’t the one ones caught out, with TNT pundits Peter Crouch and Glenn Hoddle having to stroll the ultimate little bit of the journey.

Gurban Gurbanov, who manages the visiting Azeri facet, complained “this stuff should not occur” after struggling to achieve the stadium from their resort in Stratford.

When requested why his facet arrived so late, Gurbanov mentioned: “Think about being caught in site visitors for greater than two and a half hours. I can not simply make excuses for this; it shouldn’t have occurred and there have been no police to escort us.

“It had a big effect on our footballers, however it does not take away from our opponent. They’re a superb crew and we do not flip a blind eye to that.

“As quickly as we arrived, we had been instructed to begin in 40 minutes and we weren’t as prepared or ready as we must always have been. This stuff shouldn’t occur.”

The night might have been very completely different, although, after Spurs defender Radu Dragusin obtained a crimson card simply eight minutes in.

Nonetheless, Spurs finally rallied to earn a win with 10 males as Brennan Johnson, Pape Matar Sarr and Dominic Solanke secured victory – however the guests can be questioning how they did not rating on a chaotic evening on the pitch.

Their 14 photographs – in comparison with Tottenham’s 10 – included missed sitters and a horribly skied penalty as they had been unable to make the most of some sloppy Tottenham defending.

Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou blamed his facet’s sloppy begin on the delayed kick-off.

“It was simply not an important begin for us,” he mentioned. “We had been actually passive with our passing. Whether or not it was the delay to the sport or no matter, however it’s no excuse.

“So having a 35-minute delay, delays warm-ups, delays all types of issues however you’ve got simply obtained to cope with it and we have got to cope with it higher than what we did tonight.

“We sort of shot ourselves within the foot and sadly Radu [Dragusin] paid the last word worth for it. However as a crew, we simply did not begin the sport in the best way we needed to and the best way we wanted to and made the sport difficult for us.

“The response was nice, completely, however disenchanted we needed to be in that place.”

Spurs boss Postecoglou was left with some late issues after Son Heung-min limped off within the 71st minute, and Archie Grey seemed to be in ache late on.

Johnson was additionally withdrawn at half-time after he continued his wealthy vein of kind, however the Australian performed down issues in regards to the Wales worldwide’s health.

“I have not spoke to him. He mentioned he felt a bit drained, however I have not spoken to him or the medical crew but,” Postecoglou mentioned of Son.

“Yeah Brennan’s effective. It was simply tactical. I assumed we would want Deki Kulusevski as a result of the best way the sport goes, Deki is a like a hybrid midfielder and also can get away on that proper wing. It was only a tactical change, however Brennan is okay.”