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Thursday, December 01, 2011

Tottenham crash at home to PAOK Salonika in Europa League

Tottenham slipped to a 1-2 home defeat to PAOK Salonika on Wednesday night, to leave the North London side 3rd in the group and needing some help to reach the knockout stages.

The Greek side raced into a 2-0 lead at White Hart Lane through a Dimitris Salpingidis header and a Stefanos Athanasiadis tap in before Luka Modric's first-half penalty gave Spurs hope after Kostas Stafylidis was sent off for handling on the line.

Walker and Bale were introduced to add to some urgency to Tottenham's wing play, but PAOK defended heroically at times, throwing themselves in the way of the ball as Spurs maintained an extraordinary spell of pressure.

Ex-Gooner William Gallas was playing just his second game of the season for Spurs, and he was at fault for the first goal (heh!) and looked tentative throughout.

So Tottenham's swaggering progress in the Europa League has hit a massive roadblock, and this second loss in Europa Group A now means qualification hopes have dimmed for Spurs.

Spurs will travel to Dublin on 15 December to play Shamrock Rovers, and will need a big win, and for Rubin Kazan to lose thier final group game at PAOK to qualify.

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