Thomas Frank admitted that Bodo/Glimt were better than us for a period, but was pleased with the character shown by the team to rescue a point in Tuesday’s Champions League outing in Norway.
After missing a penalty in the first half, the home side frustrated us with two well-taken goals from Jens Petter Hauge – Rodrigo Bentancur also having one disallowed in between – as we struggled to get to grips with the tie.
But after Micky van de Ven – captain for the first time – quickly pulled one back with a header, we began to play forward more and levelled two minutes from time when Archie Gray’s low drive was saved by goalkeeper Nokita Haikin but deflected back in off defender Jostein Gundersen with Richarlison putting the pressure on.
Head Coach Thomas said he was pleased to come away with a share of the spoils, given the way the game panned out.
“I think we need to be happy with the point,” he told SPURSPLAY. “When you are down 2-0 with 22 minutes to go in the Champions League away from home against a very, very good home side, I think we need to be happy with the point and I think the way we again showed character, that will bring us a long way, I’m very happy with that in the players.
“I think the players showed a great attitude, a great mentality, great determination which I think is a very important thing to have in a team. The players were really fighting hard and that kept us in the game, and got us back into the game and to get a 2-2 after being 2-0 down away from home against Bodo, that is very good up here.
“Until the goal for 2-0, I think Bodo was better than us today. I think we struggled a bit with the way to defend without them creating those same massive chances, also the goal for 1-0, then we started a little bit not enough times to get aggressively into high presses, then on the ball I think we should have got out more times, we had a good spell in the first half, we should have done that more often but I think there were signs of something better. In the second half we went down, but then we showed that strong mentality to come back into the game.”
Following our matchday one victory at home to Villarreal, we now have four points from our opening two games in the Champions League. Only once before – in 2017/18 – have we enjoyed a better start in the competition.
“That’s definitely pleasing,” added Thomas. “The Champions League is the Champions League and it’s very difficult. Everyone should know how good Bodo is up here and I think also fair play to them, they had an extra level to their game compared to May. Of course, I was not here but if you look at them, I think they did well today.
“For me, there are things we learned today, definitely always we learn a lot, but I think the positive again which is super, super important, is when we go down, we stay in the game, we keep fighting, we keep doing the right thing. Today I think we kept the structure better than against Wolves and we kept doing the right thing which was important.”
Watch | Thomas reacts to Bodo/Glimt draw on SPURSPLAY