Micky van de Ven’s goal of the season contender helped Tottenham provide boss Thomas Frank with much-needed home comforts after a 4-0 thrashing of Copenhagen in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Frank watched Spurs deliver a tepid display in a poor London derby loss to Chelsea on Saturday, which sparked boos at full-time and an unfortunate flashpoint between Van de Ven and Djed Spence.<\/p>\n
Van de Ven and Spence ignored the instructions of Frank to applaud the home fans, but an apology by the duo on Monday was followed by a sensational strike by the Dutch defender.<\/p>\n
Vice-captain Van de Ven carried the ball from the edge of his penalty area to score a superb solo goal in the 64th minute.<\/p>\n
It put Tottenham 3-0 up but was decisive as Brennan Johnson, who produced a 19th-minute opener, was controversially sent off at the start of the second half minutes after Wilson Odobert added a second.<\/p>\n
Substitute Joao Palhinha added gloss to the score with 23 minutes left before RIcharlison squandered a late spot-kick as Spurs produced the biggest win of Frank\u2019s 17-game tenure at the perfect time to move onto eight points in the Champions League and keep alive their hopes of a top-eight finish.<\/p>\n
Listen to the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n After the team were booed on multiple occasions on Saturday, Frank shuffled his pack with last season’s leading scorer Johnson recalled and the fit-again Destiny Udogie at left-back for the first time since 4 October.<\/p>\n Xavi Simons, another brought in by Frank, set up Udogie for a sliced effort straight at Dominik Kotarski and two minutes later the \u00a352million summer recruit made the opener.<\/p>\n Rodrigo Bentancur found Xavi, who curled through to Johnson and Tottenham\u2019s number 22 expertly rounded Kotarski before he calmly slotted home.<\/p>\n It was Johnson\u2019s 45th goal involvement for Spurs in his 101st match and much-needed for a team who had won only four of their last 20 domestic home fixtures.<\/p>\n Johnson almost turned provider moments later but his chipped cross was sent over by Pape Sarr.<\/p>\n Copenhagen\u2019s Youssoufa Moukoko fired straight at Guglielmo Vicario from a corner but it should have been 2-0 at half-time.<\/p>\n With Xavi\u2019s influence growing, his one-two with Odobert set up a golden chance for Randal Kolo Muani but he side-footed wide.<\/p>\n Kolo Muani then headed over from a superb Xavi cross in stoppage time before Tottenham grabbed a second six minutes into the second half.<\/p>\n Pedro Porro\u2019s long pass seemed routine for Kotarski but Kolo Muani blocked the clearance, brought the ball down majestically inside the area and teed up Odobert.<\/p>\n It sparked a crazy 17-minute spell with a red card for Johnson was followed by two counter-attacking goals involving Spurs\u2019 centre-backs.<\/p>\n Firstly Johnson\u2019s evening ended prematurely and in contentious fashion as he slid in on Copenhagen left-back Marcos Lopez. Referee Erik Lambechts brandished a yellow card but VAR upgraded it to a red.<\/p>\n Van de Ven ensured the fixture was not in the balance for long as in the 64th minute he produced a contender for FIFA\u2019s Puskas award.<\/p>\n The Dutch defender received the ball on the edge of his own area and produced a barnstorming run before he finished with aplomb.<\/p>\n Romero attempted to rival his fellow centre-back when he led a counter-attack and teed up substitute Palhinha three minutes later.<\/p>\n There was still time for Richarlison to smash a stoppage-time spot-kick against the crossbar but it failed to sour a much-needed home win for Frank.<\/p>\n Watch Republic of Ireland v Panama in the FIFA Under-17 World Cup on Wednesday from 12.20pm on RT\u00c92 and the RT\u00c9 Player. Follow a live blog on the RT\u00c9 News App and on rte.ie\/sport<\/p>\n Watch Manchester City v Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League on Wednesday from 7pm on RT\u00c92 and the RT\u00c9 Player. Follow a live blog on the RT\u00c9 News App and on rte.ie\/sport<\/p>\n Watch the Sports Direct FAI Cup final, Shamrock Rovers v Cork City, on Sunday from 2pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow a live blog on the RT\u00c9 News App and on rte.ie\/sport. Listen to live commentary on Sunday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Micky van de Ven’s goal of the season contender helped Tottenham provide boss Thomas Frank with much-needed home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-122399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}