Tottenham battle back to beat Olympiacos and qualify for Champions League knockout stages

If the final twenty minutes of the win over West Ham gave Jose Mourinho a worrying glimpse of the soft underbelly of his new Tottenham side, he got a full viewing in the opening 45 minutes here against Olympiakos.

Two soft goals at the London Stadium took the gloss off what should have been a comprehensive win. A similar avoidable brace here showed there is much work to be done to bring this side up to scratch beyond simply sticking a high-profile manager in the dugout.

Yet here Spurs are – 4-2 winners and into the knock-out stages of the Champions League for successive seasons with a manager who has achieved the feat for the 15th time in his career.

Their comeback owed much to a couple of moments of good fortune. But for a comical air-kick they would have gone into half-time trailing 2-0. And had a ballboy not had the wherewithal to give Serge Aurier the ball for a quick throw-in, the hunt for the equaliser would have extended beyond the 50-minute mark.

But with the visitors unable to sustain the quality of their initial 45, they were blown away in the second half with three goals from a more proactive Spurs. Much of that character would have come from the manager who decided, upon 29 minutes, to make an early tactical change.

Eric Dier was the player removed – Christian Eriksen the one to turn things around, which is essentially how this story played out. We are used to Mourinho making first-half changes but often as a grand statement of his Caligula-like disdain for what is unfolding in front of him. This time, however, it was measured and meaningful.

A bit of classic Jose with a tinge of newly found humility? We can but wonder.

The atmosphere was thick with anticipation: the home fans in their seats as early as reasonable to get a good look at their new manager before kick-off. They and an army of photographers had their sights set on the tunnel as Mourinho walked out and the roar at kick-off was the sort that inspires all-action starts. And it was Olympiakos who provided it.

The Greeks were not bothered by the bells and whistles around the evening. They snapped the ball about – heck, let’s say it, like Spurs used to – and, crucially, confirmed their early good work with a goal after six minutes.

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What started initially as tidy build-up down the Spurs left, where Danny Rose had come in for the injured Ben Davies saw Youssef El Arabi receive in front of the opposition box, shift beyond Harry Winks then, devoid off any substantial pressure, rasp a left-footed strike beyond Paolo Gazzaniga, who should have done better.

Just like that, the atmosphere switched from excitable to anguished.

So began a period of blind panic from Spurs which only served to ramp up the agitation of the crowd. In turn, the Olympiakos support grew beyond the corner of the ground they were given and almost spilled out onto the pitch when their lead was doubled on 19 minutes.

Again, Winks was at fault: a stray pass allowed Daniel Podence a clear run on goal that was snuffed out by the pace of Davinson Sanchez. However from the second of the two resulting corners, a flick at the near post took out four defenders and found Ruben Semedo free and about a yard out from goal.

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It would have stayed that way until half time had Yassine Meriah found leather instead of air as the first man to encounter Serge Aurier’s relatively tame cross. The comical miss did for his fellow defenders and allowed Dele Alli to tap home to cut the deficit in half.

That Alli was in this position, the furthest Spurs player forward, was the side effect of this new role under Mourinho: a midfielder when his side are without the ball but a forward when they are with it, particularly out wide.

But there were signs of the Alli of old with his nimble footwork in the box that led to Spurs’ third. A slick drag back, a quicker shuffle and a cross from left of the box took three Olympiakos defenders with him and allowed Aurier, with a third of the penalty area to himself after a flick on from Son Heung-Min, to slam a half-volley into the far corner.

The equaliser was also the product of some quick thinking, only this time from a ball boy. A quick recycling of the ball allowed Aurier to take a quick throw and release Lucas Moura into space. A cut-back to Kane on the edge to the six-yard box was only going to end one way. The ballboy was rewarded with a high-five and an embrace from Mourinho.

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Kane’s second – a deft header from a deep Eriksen cross for Spurs’s fourth – was his 20th in the Champions League and gave cause for celebration. No player has reached the landmark quicker than the 24 appearances it has taken him.

There will be more negatives than positives to take from this performance, where a team who have not won away in the group stage since October 2015 were made to look hard work. But Spurs are into the knockout stages and, right now, that is all that matters.