Odobert the hero of a Spurs cliffhanger

NOTHING has ever been straightforward in Ange Postecoglou’s Ministry of Fun.

- Mike Walters

But at drinking-up time in the last chance saloon, two-goal Wilson Odobert became the toast of Tottenham’s European bounty hunters.

Postecoglou’s claim that he always wins a trophy in his second season at each club was down to the last drops of credibility until Odobert came to the rescue.

In the space of a week, Spurs went from looking more rattled than a tambourine in a church band to calling the tune like a jukebox.

But they turned plain sailing into a four-act drama, swapping a vapid first-leg defeat in the Netherlands eight days ago for a nerve-shredding salvage operation.

It was arguably Tottenham's biggest game since the Champions League final in 2019, simply because it defined whether Postecoglou’s two-year project to restore artistic merit as keynote of the club’s DNA was riding on it.