Spurs ease pressure on Frank with Dortmund win
Cristian Romero and Dominic Solanke scored their first Champions League goals to guide Tottenham to a 2-0 win over 10-man Borussia Dortmund.
Thomas Frank is coming under increased scrutiny as Spurs' league form continues to disappoint, with last weekend's 2-1 home defeat to West Ham marking a new nadir.
Yet Spurs continued their perfect home record in Europe this term, boosting their hopes of finishing in the top eight as they moved up to fourth with one game left to play.
Dortmund failed to clear Pedro Porro's 13th-minute corner, and Wilson Odobert recycled it, drilling a low centre towards the penalty spot, where Romero guided it past Gregor Kobel first time.
BVB went further on the back foot when Daniel Svensson was sent off for a high tackle on Odobert, with his yellow card upgraded to a red after a VAR review.
Odobert was involved again 37 minutes in as he drove down the right before squaring it to Solanke, who scuffed an unorthodox finish in off the far post after tripping over his own feet to mark his first start of the season with a goal.
Julian Ryerson curled a free-kick just wide of the left post in Dortmund's best chance, before Xavi Simons forced Kobel into a near-post parry from a tight angle.
Randal Kolo Muani could have added some late gloss after racing onto a throughball while one-on-one with the stranded Kobel, but he hit his low shot straight at the grateful goalkeeper.
Nico Schlotterbeck almost salvaged some late pride for Dortmund, but Guglielmo Vicario made a stunning save to help ease some of the pressure on Frank.
It has been a week in which Frank has had to field questions about his future, but his team responded brilliantly.
Spurs, dominated from the start, firing off 16 shots while limiting Dortmund to just one shot on target (five overall).
Solanke also became only the fifth player to score on his Champions League debut for Spurs, and only the second Englishman to do so, after Peter Crouch in September 2010 against Werder Bremen.
Dortmund's own top-eight hopes, meanwhile, were dented by this loss, and it was not helped by the red card; it was the German giant's 10th in the Champions League overall.
