Bentley savours dream debut

Tottenham 2 Celtic 0

Bentley scored Tottenham’s second goal with 10 minutes remaining, to give Juande Ramos’ side a well-deserved victory.

The England international penned a long-term deal at the north London club on Wednesday, bringing to a close one of the most drawn-out transfers of the summer.

He said it was a relief to make a good start to his Tottenham career after arriving at White Hart Lane with a price tag of £17million (€21.5m).

“I’ve come here with a big price tag and I just wanted to get off to a good start and hit the ground running to be honest,” said Bentley.

“I haven’t been playing many games so it was tough getting back into the swing of things but I was delighted to get a goal. I loved every minute of it.”

Darren Bent continued his fine pre-season goalscoring form for Spurs by giving them the advantage after 23 minutes.

It was Bent’s seventh goal in three matches and the England striker shrugged off suggestions that the team would struggle in front of goal after the departure of Robbie Keane to Liverpool.

“We’ve signed a lot of good players this summer so it’s going to be a good season,” Bent said.

“Everyone is gelling well. We’ve been tracking Bents (Bentley) for some time and now we’ve got him he’s only going to help the team if he produces chances and scores like he has done today.”

Celtic manager Gordon Strachan was impressed with Tottenham and bemoaned his own team’s poor passing.

“If you pass the ball like them (Spurs) it doesn’t matter what tactics you use,” said Strachan.

“Tonight we committed 18 unforced errors.

“If you take that down to five or six then we’d have had the ball about eight minutes longer.

“When you give the ball away like that it’s a big problem.”