Victor Osimhen scored twice to inflict a first Europa League defeat on 10-player Tottenham and earn a 3-2 victory for wasteful Galatasaray.
Spurs conceded 28 shots and had just five of their own yet escaped from Istanbul with a respectable scoreline despite having Will Lankshear sent off in the second half.
Galatasaray stormed into a sixth-minute lead when Yunus Akgun’s stunning volley from the edge of the box crashed into the top-right corner but Spurs responded through 19-year-old striker Lankshear, who tapped in his first goal for the club after Brennan Johnson had squared a cross.
Tottenham’s Will Lankshear, second from left, celebrates with his team-mates after scoring his side’s opening goal against Galatasaray
However, the visitors were vulnerable at the back throughout with Osimhen forcing a good save from Forster and then having a goal ruled out for offside before restoring his side’s lead with a clever toe-poke after Radu Dragusin gave the ball away.
Forster saved again from Osimhen but just 60 seconds later the striker netted his second of the first half with a cushioned volley from Dries Mertens’ perfect cross.
Ange Postecoglou brought on Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur for Brennan Johnson and Heung-Min Son at half-time – but Spurs got worse. Abdulkerim Bardakci had a goalbound shot blocked after Forster dropped an easy cross before Akgun’s volley was deflected inches wide and Osimhen missed two chances.
Galatasaray’s Victor Osimhen celebrates after scoring his side’s second goal against Tottenham Hotspur (AP Photo)
Lankshear then picked up his second yellow card, just seven minutes after his first, for a silly tackle on the halfway line and then Forster made two more saves.
Solanke, though, cleverly flicked Pedro Porro’s low pullback into the net against the run of play to put Spurs within one goal and Kulusevski could have equalised in injury-time when his long-range shot rolled wide with goalkeeper Fernando Muslera way out of his goal.
Postecoglou: Defeat was self-inflicted, Lankshear will learn from red
Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou said:
“I just felt it was self-inflicted. We had really simple solutions out there to keep the ball. It wasn’t that hard. We showed it with 10 men. We just needed to be stronger on the ball and play the kind of football we play every week.
“Maybe it was a little bit the changes I made and the environment and atmosphere, but the moments that stick out to me was giving the ball away. We were playing through them quite easily with 10 men but with 11 men we had nowhere near that conviction and that was disappointing.”
On Will Lankshear: “Will took his goal well, he worked hard for the team. He hasn’t had a lot of experience at senior football so he would have learnt a lot today. The red card, it was a bit of overenthusiasm in that moment to give away a foul, but he’ll learn from that.”
Opta Stats: Osimhen loves facing English opposition
- Galatasaray have won three of their opening four games in a major European campaign for the first time since 2009-10, also in the Europa League.
- Tottenham faced 28 shots in their loss to Galatasaray, their most in a game under manager Ange Postecoglou; it is the most efforts faced by an English team in a Europa League group stage match since Everton faced 39 shots against Wolfsburg in November 2014.
- Victor Osimhen has scored 12 goals across his 23 starts in major European competition, netting more times against English opposition than any other nation (2 vs Tottenham, 2 vs Leicester, 1 vs Chelsea).
- Tottenham’s Will Lankshear (19y 201d) became the third youngest player to both score and be sent off in a Europa League game after Aleksandar Mitrovic for Partizan Belgrade in November 2012 (18y 67d) and Federico Chiesa for Fiorentina in December 2016 (19y 44d).
