Bent Brings Relief at Last for Fragile Tottenham

Tottenham Hotspur have their respite. This tie may remain on edge ahead of a daunting trip to Krakow in a fortnight, but Juande Ramos will take any victory, however slim, at present. The Uefa Cup has been kind to the Spaniard in the past. How he must hope this win proves to be the catalyst to better times.

A first success of the season was secured late last night just as the jitters had returned to Spurs' play with time ebbing away. Fraizer Campbell, flung on for a debut with the hosts desperate for a lead, showed strength and awareness to hold up the ball then chip a center into the six-yard box where Darren Bent, previously too isolated, rose above Cleber to nod the Premier League side into a rare lead.

Thereafter, Gareth Bale and Ledley King might have provided the reassurance of a third as Wisla wavered between seeking parity or settling for narrow defeat. They ended content in the knowledge that they will create enough in the ferocious atmosphere of the stadion Wisly next month to offer hope of progress. Spurs, bottom of the league and horribly disjointed up to now, will just rejoice in the conviction that a corner has been turned.

The hosts had began their pre-match entertainment on the big screens with a re-run of the flurry of goals plundered against the Cypriots Anorthosis Famagusta in last season's equivalent stage. That half of the six registered that night had been scored by Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe, gone but not forgotten, inadvertently served to put the club's current domestic toils into sharper focus.

Not for the first time in recent years - only four points had been gleaned from six league games at the same stage last term - the Uefa Cup had hinted at a timely route to relief. So wretched had Spurs' Premier League form proved that anything to deflect attention from Sunday's visit of Wigan Athletic, a match Ramos must surely win if the season is not already to have descended into farce, was hugely welcomed. Wisla were an unknown quantity, driven on by a furiously vocal support, but Tottenham had to believe they were beatable.

Not that a repeat of last year's romp was ever anticipated. David Bentley had provoked a goalmouth scramble barely 20 seconds in, but there was too much anxiety in Tottenham's play to provide any real fluidity to their approach. The early hustle and bustle down either flank was crunched by athletic and awkward opponents. What progress the hosts made invariably came from Bentley's forays on the right, though this was too chaotic for comfort. It said everything about Spurs' current lack of cohesion that the stadium was still celebrating the home side's opening goal when the Poles sprung upfield to equalize virtually from the restart.

There was something appropriately shambolic about that. Bentley, employed on the right at last, had emerged from the frenzy to curl Aaron Lennon's cross, fizzed across the area to by-pass panicked defenders, gloriously back inside the full-back Junior Diaz and beyond an unsighted Marisuz Pawelek. The majority of those crammed into the arena erupted, the outpouring of relief clear, yet Wisla are not the Famagusta of last season. They hit back while Spurs relaxed, Didier Zokora surrendering possession and Rafael Boguski and Pawel Brozek combining to slip Tomas Jirsak free of a ramshackle rearguard. The forward's finish was clipped calmly over Heurelho Gomes and, after 67 seconds of glee, the nerves poured back.

The Poles might actually have led by the break, Boguski forcing Gomes to paw away a snap shot but, by then, the notion that Spurs might find this a stroll had long since been exposed as wishful thinking. Wisla, a team that have claimed their domestic title six times in the past decade, retained cause for optimism.

There was a haunted look to Ramos in the technical area, the Spaniard rarely warmed by Bentley's invention as Pawelek pushed away both Jonathan Woodgate's header and the winger's own volley. Giovani dos Santos, slipped in by Bentley, betrayed his lack of confidence in new surroundings by choosing inexplicably to square to no one in particular after Jermaine Jenas slipped him through.

Ramos' reaction was just as livid when the Mexican was flagged for offside, hastily, before Darren Bent converted at the far post. The home side were at least chiseling out chances, the bold introduction of the debutant Campbell an indication of the recognition that a lead was needed ahead of the second leg. Yet Spurs retained a vulnerability. Quite how Brozek skied over the bar when free at the far post remained a mystery.