The Game
Thomas Frank sat in his post-match press conference with a feeling of pride, a smile and a confidence that would make you forget that this was his first ever Champions league game in Totttenham's first Champions league game since that unforgettable 0-0 last 16 game against AC Milan in March 2023.
This game itself is never going to be remembered as classic despite Tottenham taking the lead in fortunate fashion. A cross from Lucas Bergvall caused confusion in the Villareal penalty area, and their goalkeeper Luiz will want to hope any penalty box confusion is permanent after he spilled it into his own net.
After the early goal, the rest of the match saw very few cut chances but from a complete contrast from last season, Tottenham defended solidly and while Villareal tried to build momentum with the highlight being a late Nicolas Pepe freekick going high and wide along with another chance from the Ivorian zipping past the post there were very few cut chances. A late moment of danger that the home faithful will not want to see back and in real time would be expecting a penalty to follow when Micky van De Ven committed a foul on Georges Mikautadze just outside the area leading to the aforementioned Pepe freekick.
Thomas Partey & Tottenham's attacking struggles
The highlight of the game arguably came when Thomas Partey in the 78th minute, came on for Villareal, receiving loud boos from the crowd due to his ties with Tottenham's rivals Arsenal as well as some ongoing off-field controversies.
Despite the win, Tottenham's attacking play lacked a cutting edge and they had only one shot on target in the match. This was largely down to the midfield selection of Bentancur, Bergvall and Sarr who all have their have their own individual qualities all struggled to cut through Villareal's defence with clear cut chances which left Tottenham's overreliance on Mohammed Kudus down the right hand side to offer glimpses skill and pace.
The Xavi Simons Question
Xavi Simon's was deployed on the left hand side of the attack which is a position he has played in the last couple of years for RB Leipzig he has admitted himself his preferred position his in the No.10 role and he and every Spurs fan will be wondering how long it will be until we see him played in his preferred position and will raise the questions of why a left-sided winger was not brought in during the summer with the pursuit of Man City's Savinho coming to nothing and also with Odobert and Tel sitting on the bench who can play there why they weren't used to allow Xavi Simon's to play more centrally. In this author's opinion the Xavi situation (although for only 2 games) has echoes of the early days of Luka Modric at Tottenham, where he was too good to be left out of the team but it was easy (maybe with a tad of hindsight) that his best position was centrally and the rest as we know was history.
Overall despite the frustrations, this was a good night for Tottenham where they got 3 points giving them a platform to build on. The defensive set up looks strong and is lightyears away from some of the showings of last season where a clean sheet and good structure were rare and sometimes also fortuitous. It is also still early days under Frank and the attacking patterns and improvement will come if Frank's Brentford blueprint is anything to go on and although patience is not a word Spurs fans will want to hear (being a spurs fan myself I am guilty of this) it is important to have and I have no doubt that with Thomas Frank is Tottenham's best signing of the summer and this will be evident in the weeks and months to come.
