LONDON -- Two goals clear, a man to the good, Tottenham were coasting to the top of Group D. They still occupy that but only after turning what might have been a convincing victory into a tortuous late experience for their home crowd, a 3-2 win that told us only a few things about Antonio Conte's side that we did not already know.
Give them space to attack and the Heung-min Son-Harry Kane can take the game away from you, as they did in 16 blistering minutes before the break. And yet this was a team that sat awkwardly in the ascendancy. In the near half hour between Tuta's red card for hauling Son to the ground and Faride Alidou's dramatic header, Tottenham let the game drift. The two-goal lead they built up had been just about enough but Europe's finest teams, those who can seriously aspire to win this competition, do not expend unnecessary energy holding off a late Eintracht Frankfurt fightback.
Having won in Seville, Barcelona and London en route to last season's Europa League crown, this visit to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for what Sebastian Rode termed "almost a knockout match" held little fear for Eintracht Frankfurt. Indeed, between the incessant chants of the visiting supporters and the intensity of the early press from Oliver Glasner's side, one could have been forgiven for thinking this was Deutsche Bank Park.
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Nominally, wing-backs Kristijan Jakic and Christopher Lenz were pushed up far enough to make for a front four in attack and defense, where Frankfurt were determined to reclaim possession as high up as possible. In that approach lay the seeds of Spurs' victory, but early on it looked as if the hosts had no answer for the pressure placed on their backline. Ryan Sessegnon in particular looked overawed, but everyone across the back five struggled with this ultra aggressive approach from the visitors.
After a quarter of an hour, they were seeing shadows. How else to explain the extraordinarily heavy touch Eric Dier took in his own box. No one was that near him when the pass was played though Jesper Lindstrom had just begun to dart. Once the Frankfurt frontline smelled blood, though, they pounced, unleashing a frenzy in the Tottenham box. Rode showed presence of mind to roll the ball across goal to Daichi Kamada, who did what he does in London. West Ham's dreams of European glory and Unai Emery's plans for further employment at Arsenal had been shredded by the Japanese forward, for a time being you could see a scenario where he would now be consigning Spurs to the doldrums of their Champions League group.
The path to victory for Frankfurt seemed pretty clear. Their press had worked but now might have been the time to dial it down, to challenge Tottenham to create in front of a packed defense. Whether it would have worked is unknowable. What is is that sticking with Plan A proved to be a disaster.
All Spurs needed to do was break through the initial line of pressure and they were one on one with the Frankfurt back three. Kane and Son dug around in their bag of collective tricks and pulled out a classic. The No. 10 dropped deep, drawing his man with him before turning and slipping in a pass to where he knew his partner in crime would be. The 50th time one of these has assisted the other, this was a goal you've already seen a dozen times before. It doesn't get any easier to stop.
You could have said the same of Kane's barreling run through the Frankfurt midfield on course to winning a penalty nine minutes later. Jakic seemed convinced that the England captain had already been falling to the ground when the pair collided and he might have had a point. Equally, if you clatter into an opponent inside the penalty area you can have precious few complaints if the referee opts to point to the spot.
They may have shared the goals but most encouragingly for Antonio Conte, this was not just the Kane and Son show. Richarlison has on occasion looked an awkward fit alongside these two, seemingly better suited to the alternate for either with a more creative player added to the frontline. Here, however, there were flashes of a burgeoning understanding between the trio, with the Brazilian willing to take on the role of ball progressor, flicking headers and passes on to find Son in stride.
Son Heung-Min HIT that! 🚀😳 pic.twitter.com/WllAsYT1VI
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) October 12, 2022
For Spurs' third goal, it was Richarlison making the decoy runs and doing the hold-up work that dragged defenders out of position, allowing Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg to appear from nowhere and deliver a cross that Son met with a thunderous volley. Perhaps more so than the rest of the front three, Richarlison seems prepared to do the hard graft. He will drop back to aid Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur or chase his wing-back wherever is required.
Though those signs of a burgeoning connection with the new signing are welcome, their frontline still lacks the verve and imagination that Dejan Kulusevski offers. Indeed, it is fair to wonder what almost any other pair of forwards might have made the equalizing goal look as easy as Kane and Son did; it is no problem that Conte's side look to exploit the instinctive understanding that those two have, but the defeat to Arsenal earlier this month was a reminder of how difficult it can be to get those precision passes just right.
Similarly, there was precious little invention from open play when Frankfurt abandoned any semblance of a press in the period between Tuta's sending off and the header by Faride Alidou in the 87th minute that raised hopes of some late Spursyness. In that period, Tottenham registered just two shots, their opponents drew as many saves from Hugo Lloris through infrequent darts forward on the counter. Tottenham's inability to break down a more defensive team turned what ought to have been a breeze into an unduly stressful finale where Bryan Gil won a penalty that Harry Kane blazed over before a late siege of the Tottenham goal from Frankfurt.
It need not have been anywhere near as difficult as it was. Come the knockout stages -- which Spurs are well placed to reach, leading Sporting and Marseille by a point -- it may be that Tottenham actually get more opportunities to play in the spaces their ambitious opponents leave behind, just as Frankfurt did on the night. But with just 10 men, Frankfurt seemed to have no issues keeping Tottenham at bay when they took a more conservative approach. The rest of Europe will surely note this down as another reminder of how to frustrate Conte's men.
