The stats – Spurs v Wolfsberger AC

Ahead of tonight’s Europa League round of 32 return leg with Wolfsberger AC, we take a look at the key numbers behind the game.

First leg

We stormed to a 4-1 victory over Wolfsberger AC in Thursday’s first leg in Budapest. First-half goals from Heung-Min Son, Gareth Bale and Lucas Moura set us on our way before Michael Liendl pulled one back from the penalty spot for the hosts. Carlos Vinicius, however, restored our three-goal lead late on with an instinctive strike – an advantage which means our Austrian visitors will need to score four without reply in north London this evening to overcome us in the tie. And history will be against Wolfsberg in N17 as, since the inception of the UEFA Cup/Europa League, no team has overturned a three-goal deficit away from home in the second leg during the knockout stages of the competition.

Spurs v Austrian teams

That 4-1 win over Wolfsberger AC in Hungary extended our unbeaten record against Austrian sides in competitive games. In our history, we have faced four different sides from the central European nation, played seven matches, won five of them and drawn the other two. In that run, we have won all three of our home matches and are yet to concede in such ties.

In our run to UEFA Cup glory in 1984, we faced FK Austria Wien in the quarter-finals of the competition. In the first leg, we earned a 2-0 win at White Hart Lane with Steve Archibald and Alan Brazil on the scoresheet before sealing our spot in the semi-finals with a 2-2 draw in the Austrian capital two weeks later - Brazil was once again on the scoresheet while Ossie Ardiles got our second that night.

Then, in 1991, we claimed a 2-0 win over two legs against SV Stockerau in the preliminary round of the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup. We won both legs 1-0 with Gordon Durie on target in the away leg before Gary Mabbutt hit the back of the net in north London.

Most recently we met LASK in this season’s Europa League group stages. In our meeting at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, we overcame the Austrian side 3-0 - an own goal as well as strikes from Lucas and Heung-Min Son giving us all three points. In the away encounter, an end-to-end match produced a 3-3 draw. Again, Sonny was on target while Gareth Bale and Dele also scored, both from the penalty spot.

Our South Korean forward was then joined on the scoreline once again by Bale in the aforementioned first leg of this evening’s round of 32 tie, as well as Lucas and Carlos Vinicius, as we claimed a 4-1 win over Wolfsberg at the Puskas Arena last Thursday.

Home and away

We have enjoyed our European nights at home this season having won each of our last four such matches, scoring 16 goals while conceding only twice. We last won five in a row at home in Europe between August 2013 and February 2014. Our only defeat across our last 13 home matches in the UEFA Europa League (excluding qualifiers) came against Borussia Dortmund at the last 16 stage in 2015-16 (otherwise W9 D3).

Meanwhile, it is on the road where Wolfsberger AC’s European record stands strongest. The Austrian side have played eight away games in all European competitions in their history and have won more games (four) than they have lost (three). However, Wolfsberg’s most recent away knockout match in European competition was a UEFA Europa League qualifier against Borussia Dortmund in 2015-16 - they lost 5-0.

Samba stars

Our two Brazilian forwards, Lucas Moura and Carlos Vinicius, lead the way as our top scorers in the Europa League proper this season with four goals each. Both players scored in the first leg of this evening’s fixture in Budapest last Thursday.