Ange full of praise for £65m man Solanke, who opens his scoring account in Spurs' 3-1 win over Brentford

Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglu praised Dominic Solanke after the striker scored his first Tottenham goal in the north Londoners' 3-1 win over Brentford at White Hart Lane today.

Solanke gleefully accepted a tap-in to open his Tottenham account - and level matters for Spurs - before further goals from Brennan Johnson and James Maddison secured three points for Postecoglu's side.

The £65m summer signing from Bournemouth has suffered a rather disrupted start to the campaign, sustaining an ankle injury at Leicester on the opening day.

But Postecoglu was delighted with the striker's contribution, as Spurs responded to last weekend's defeat at home to Arsenal with a fine display of pressing and attacking football.

Speaking at his post-match press conference, Spurs' Australian boss said: "Dom is working his way to fitness.

“At the end he was a bit out of gas. We probably wanted to take him off a bit before but we needed another goal to kill the game off. But he has been good again - he has been good in every game he has played for us. 

"Strikers love scoring goals and it was a great moment for him to score his first goal for us, particularly at home."

Picture: Charlie Stong

It was a case of deja vu for Brentford who, just as they did last weekend at Manchester City, scored in the first minute of the game - only to go on to eventually take nothing from the afternoon.

Solanke's goal came after a misplaced pass from Ethan Pinnock, as Spurs' pressing proved too much for the Bees in the opening stages, resulting in a number of good chances for the home side.

Postecoglu said: "It wasn't an ideal start. but to be honest it was like (the Brentford goal) never happened. The boys went at it and that's what we wanted to do today.

"We knew Brentford were going to be pretty aggressive with and without the ball, and we love that part of the game and thought if we put our own energy and intensity into the game without the ball, we thought we could cause them a lot of problems, and we did. We were relentless the whole game and fully deserved the win.

"(Our intensity off the ball) has been great all year. Objective measures say we are probably the best in the league, probably one of the best in Europe, in terms of our pressing. 

"You saw Brentford try to play out from the back, which was an opportunity for us to really try to win the ball in high areas, which I thought we did, and to create some unbelievable opportunities from it, including the first goal, and we probably could have got a couple more out of it."

Thomas Frank (Picture: Charlie Stong)

Meanwhile Bees boss Thomas Frank was philosophical about an apparent handball outside the area from Spurs' Italian goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario.

Vicario came for a cross early in the second half and at the third attempt seemed to handle just outside the box. 

However the offence was not denying a clear goalscoring opportunity, meaning any punishment would likely have been only a booking and a free-kick.

Asked for his opinion, Frank said: "That incident didn't define the game. When we come here we need to play 90 good minutes. We played 60, and the margins need to go our way, and all that didn't add up to our possibilities of winning the game. 

"It was a mistake (by the referee). It could have been a free-kick to us, but I think the probability of scoring direct from a free-kick is like 0.05 or 0.03 (per cent), so probably not the biggest probability for scoring anyway, and I thought overall John Brooks had a very good game.

"I thought that I saw a very good Spurs team overall. We started fantastically, then Tottenham were on top, so credit to them, but the last 60 minutes I thought we did very well, and really grew into the game. 

“We had four very big chances, so we had the chances to equalise, we didn't, and in the end we lost the game."

Pictured top: Ange Postecoglu (Picture: Charlie Stong)