As the Tottenham players prepared to head down the tunnel at half-time last night, they paused for an impromptu huddle that appeared to be called by central defender Kevin Danso.
It didn’t last long but - with their under pressure manager Thomas Frank already off down the tunnel towards the dressing room – it looked very much like a conversation between a group of players who had finally decided to wake up.
A European win against a German side down to ten men after 25 minutes falls some way short of what we can call a genuine turning point for a manager and his team.
Nevertheless, Tottenham at least looked like Tottenham here both in the way they played and the way they carried themselves. At least until they started to look a little nervous with twenty minutes to go, gone was the hesitancy of recent weeks and in its place a vibrancy and swagger the home supporters expect to see when they come to this fabulous modern stadium.
Will Frank one day look back at this night and see it as the occasion everything started to come together? Or will it merely stand out as an evening that merely showed the Dane what may have been? Saturday at Burnley in the Premier League may tell us more.
Spence on the money
Few transfers sum up the occasionally chaotic way that Tottenham have done their business in recent years than the one that brought Djed Spence to the club in the summer of 2022.
Manager at the time, Antonio Conte, had no say in the deal and described him as a ‘club investment for the future’.
That was a statement that Spence – a confident character – admitted had ‘shattered my confidence’ and it’s still the case that three and a half years on the 25-year-old still has much to prove.
He has played for England but still looks occasionally immature, something his national team coach is aware of.
Here, though, we saw the attacking play we recall from his days at Nottingham Forest while on loan from Middlesbrough four years ago. Spence played down the left against Dortmund and attacked at will, soon discovering that the German defence had no answer to his direct running.
It was from one of his exhilarating breaks that Tottenham earned a corner in the 14th minute and from that Frank’s team scored their first goal. It was the most important moment of the game and if Spence can add some positional intelligence and emotional maturity to his game then Spurs – and England – will have a player.
Can the fans turn?
Many Tottenham supporters have given up on Frank already. The football his team has played in the Premier League has been so boring and ineffectual that they simply believe he is the wrong fit.
There are other factors at play, too. Tottenham fans pay some of the highest ticket prices in the country and expect more in return. There were 10,000 empty seats here, which was startling given how hard the club fought to get into this competition via the Europa League last season.
What is clear is that Tottenham fans need to see more of what they believe they deserve and pay for if this season is going to turn round.
At the weekend, Spurs chief executive Vinai Venkatesham admitted that the club needed to be more competitive on player wages. That has been noted and it remains to be seen if he is as good as his word.
In terms of Spurs players, they seemed happy last night to show support for their manager and occasionally ask for more from their fans. Frank thanked the fans afterwards. 'Their support was magic and there was a real connection,' he said.
Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario – guilty of a last minute mistake in the weekend defeat to West Ham – was nevertheless asking for more in the first half while Xavi Simons also implored the crowd for energy late in the game.
At full-time, meanwhile, Vicario wrapped his manager in a huge embrace and he wasn’t the only one to do so. If these players feel they owe their manager something they are right.
'The players are giving everything and that's a great sign regarding the culture,' said Frank who also had a special word for 17-year-old substitute Jun'ai Byfield.
'He was so calm and that was just a wow for me,' said Frank. 'I was so glad his parents were here.'
Maybe Europe can save Frank
Back when David Moyes was battling to save his skin at Manchester United in 2013, Europe gave him oxygen. It was not until a tight Champions League quarter final with Bayern Munich had been lost that United sacked the Scot.
Frank is a little way short of that level of salvation but Europe could yet offer him a way out of a mess caused by a run of dismal domestic performances. Frankfurt away is next week’s final group stage assignment and the German club have won once since mid-November.
It represents a huge opportunity for Frank and it’s not stretching things to say that his survival prospect may depend on it. The Spurs board do not want to sack their manager. They do not even have a plausible interim in mind.
So if Tottenham navigate next week’s assignment in Germany and find themselves a knock-out tie away from a place in the quarter-finals then it feels unlikely the club will pull the trigger. Frank is still without key players.
Place James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevksi, Rodrigo Bentancur and Mohammed Kudus into this team and it starts to look different. It’s not time to get carried away but Spurs have lost just once in Europe’s elite competition – against holders PSG – and that should count for something.
'It's a skill to try and go Premier League-Champions League-Premier League,' Frank said. 'We need to find that consistency. I see a team that's running hard and we are building step by step. I will have two big glasses of red tonight'.
Spurs' helping hand
Tottenham were the better team here from the off. They started the game with an aggression and tempo that has too often been absent, especially at home.
However the decision to send off Dortmund’s Daniel Svensson with the score at 1-0 was a terrible one and undoubtedly influenced the outcome. If Diogo Dalot’s challenge on Jeremy Doku was not a red card offence in the Manchester derby at the weekend – something that PGMOL head Howard Webb endorsed on TV last night - then neither was this.
Svensson dangled his foot in the air and Wilson Odobert simply ran on to it. The freeze frame that referee Glenn Nyberg was presented with when he looked at the VAR monitor looked dreadful but the moving video footage told the real story.
No force, no danger, no intent. We ask for consistency in decision making and still there is none.