Dempsey settles Spurs nerves

Tottenham 3 Panathinaikos 1

Needing just a draw to progress, Spurs had an air of complacency about them in the opening period.

The game itself was largely poor in quality — but Andre Villas-Boas will sleep easier knowing his team are one step closer to lifting the cup that he won with Porto in 2010.

Lazio’s drubbing of Maribor means Villas-Boas’s men qualify second from Group J, with a potential Champions League drop-out awaiting them in the second round.

The raucous chanting from the travelling Panathinaikos fans provided the only entertainment in the opening stages as both teams started slowly on a bitterly cold night. Like many of Tottenham’s games in the Europa League, the contest was not proving to be the best advert for the competition, but all of a sudden Emmanuel Adebayor put the hosts ahead.

The Togo marksman spun off his marker to collect Clint Dempsey’s through ball and slot the ball past Orestis Karnezis.

Panathinaikos came back at the Londoners through Toche, who beat the offside trap but Brad Friedel raced off his line to claw the ball away.

Tottenham came out a bit brighter in the second half and were unlucky not to score three minutes after the re-start.

Dempsey fed Jermain Defoe with a clever pass, but the England striker’s shot struck the foot of a post. Panathinaikos then stunned the home side with a 54th-minute equaliser.

Poor marking from Kyle Walker allowed Zeca to meet Nikos Spyropoulos’s cross and he beat Friedel with a clinical header.

The Greeks, knowing victory was their only means of qualifying for the knockout stages, continued to pressure Spurs, who were playing some of their worst football of the season.

However, Dempsey settled the home fans’ nerves with Tottenham’s second, heading in Walker’s free-kick via the bar and the keeper’s back.

Defoe’s neat finish seven minutes from time ended the game as a contest, although Villas-Boas said he knew Spurs had the attacking quality to eventually see off the Greeks.

“We’ve been scoring lots of goals. We have goals in ourselves and excellent people assisting and scoring,” he said.

TOTTENHAM: Friedel, Walker, Caulker, Vertonghen, Naughton, Lennon (Livermore 87), Sandro, Carroll (Dembele 75), Dempsey (Sigurdsson 80), Defoe, Adebayor.

PANATHINAIKOS: Karnezis, Seitaridis, Triantafyllopoulos, Vyntra, Spyropoulos, Vitolo, Sow (Christodoulopoulos 60), Sissoko, Zeca, Mavrias (Fornaroli 83),Toche (Petropoulos 78).

Referee: Pawel Gil (Poland).