All square in first leg against Eintracht Frankfurt

An entertaining game finished 1-1 with Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday evening, leaving our Europa League quarter-final tie delicately poised ahead of next week’s trip to Germany.

Although we deserved more on the night after a dominant performance against the side placed third in the Bundesliga, we had to settle for the draw after Pedro Porro’s clever flick cancelled out Hugo Ekitike’s early opener for the German side.

Lucas Bergvall cracked a long-ranger against the woodwork, Rodrigo Bentancur hit the crossbar with a header and Eintracht’s Brazilian goalkeeper Kaua Santos made three wonderful saves to deny Heung-Min Son, James Maddison and Micky van de Ven – the latter right at the end of the game – as we created a hatful of chances, giving us plenty of hope that we can do so again in Frankfurt next Thursday.

It was a proper European atmosphere as the game got underway, both sets of fans making themselves heard and we made a bright start before conceding early. For the opening five minutes we barely gave Frankfurt a kick but were punished in the sixth minute when Maddison was dispossessed midway inside the German side’s half. Ellyes Skhiri played a quick ball out wide left for Ekitike, who advanced on goal, drifted inside Pedro Porro and hit a low, right-footed curling shot into the far corner.

We responded well though, continuing to dominate possession and were getting into good positions out wide only for Frankfurt to keep us out with some good defending, until the 26th minute when we drew level. Dominic Solanke ran into the channel to receive Son’s pass, held it up and laid off to the supporting Maddison whose low cross was superbly flicked home by Pedro Porro, his 10th goal in our colours.

The pattern of play continued for the remainder of the first half, with us enjoying plenty of the ball but we didn’t test Santos in the visitors’ goal. Instead, it was Frankfurt with a glorious chance to regain the lead seconds before the interval as they got in again down their left through Arthur Theate with numbers over in the box but it fell to Ekitike and his shot was saved easily by Guglielmo Vicario.

And it was Frankfurt with the opening chance of the second period too, again after we’d started brightly, this time Jean-Matteo Bahoya in a great position on the corner of the six-yard box but he chose to cross rather than shoot and Bergvall blocked before we cleared the danger. The Swedish teenager then so nearly gave us the lead with a stunning drive which was going in until the last moment as it curled away and thumped against the corner of bar and post, before Santos pulled off a superb save to push Son’s curler over the bar. And, from the corner, Bentancur climbed highest only to see his header clip the crossbar.

Suddenly the game was opening up, with Santos making another stop to keep out a Maddison drive while Bahoya scooped over the bar at the other end after a swift Frankfurt break and Bentancur won another header from a corner, this time straight at Santos as the game entered its final quarter. We made a triple change with 10 minutes left, Maddison, Son and Destiny Udogie replaced by Pape Matar Sarr, Mathys Tel and Djed Spence as we looked for one final push to get ahead and went close in the 83rd minute when Spence overlapped Tel and delivered a low cut-back which Johnson fired high over the bar. Then, in the final minute of stoppage time, we almost nicked it. Pedro Porro clipped over a free-kick to the back post which Bentancur headed back across goal with van de Ven glancing a header which bounced down and was going in until Santos leapt up to tip it over the bar.