Galatasaray vs Tottenham Hotspur. UEFA Europa League.
Turk Telekom Arena.
Report as Galatasaray beat Tottenham in Europa League; Yunus Akgun scores stunning opener for hosts; Will Lankshear levels with first goal for Spurs; Victor Osimhen nets first-half double; Hosts dominate start of second half; Lankshear sent off for second yellow; Dominic Solanke scores
Thursday 7 November 2024 21:26, UK
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.
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.
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.
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."
