It proved to be a night to forget for Tottenham Hotspur in the Netherlands on Thursday, with Lucas Bergvall’s 18th-minute own-goal ensuring that Alkmaar come to North London with an advantage.

To make matters worse, Dominic Solanke had to come off with a knock to his back, less than 20 minutes after making his return from a lengthy injury layoff.

The injury came as a result of Solanke trying to go for Brennan Johnson’s looping cross from the right, with the striker colliding with AZ keeper Rome-Jayden Owusu-Oduro in mid-air before falling to the ground clutching his side.

Les Ferdinand suggested that it was a poor cross from the Wales international, which meant that a collision between Solanke and Owusu-Oduro was unavoidable.

The pundit told TNT Sports 3 (6/3/25 – 21:56): “When the cross came in, I was saying to Owen [Hargreaves], that is one of the worst crosses in the world for a centre forward. You have to go for it, but you know you’re going to get clattered by the goalkeeper and that is exactly what happened to him.

“It’s one of those crosses where it is floated in and you feel as a centre forward who hasn’t had many chances ‘I have to go for this’ and you know the goalkeeper is coming to get you. It’s the goalkeeper’s ball, look where his knee is, right in his back. I thought it was a dead leg at first, but it looks a lot more serious than that. Hopefully, it’s a bang and he can get over it quite quickly.”

Johnson’s aerial crossing needs to improve in general

While Johnson is decent at playing a low shot/cross across the box, he rarely ever manages to find a teammate’s head with his aerial crosses, which are often either overhit or simply have too much loop on them.

That is an area that the 23-year-old has to work on, particularly given that he is feeding someone like Solanke, who is good in the air.

On this occasion, the Englishman was brave for going for the ball and one would hope that it is just soreness from the impact and that it is not a serious injury.