Tottenham spot on against Slavia Prague to close in on top eight

LONDON, Dec 9 : Tottenham Hotspur maintained their strong Champions League home form with a 3-0 win against Slavia Prague thanks to an own goal and penalties for Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons on Tuesday.

The London club were made to work hard by the visitors but eventually eased to a third win on their own turf in this year's competition to boost their hopes of a top-eight finish.

Thomas Frank's side got their noses in front in the 26th minute when a Pedro Porro corner was headed into his own net by David Zima under no real pressure.

Porro was involved again five minutes after the restart when he was hacked down in the area by Youssoupha Sanyang and Kudus calmly beat Jindrich Stanek from the spot.

Simons, who scored his first goal for Tottenham at the weekend, was then taken down in the area by Igoh Ogbu in the 78th minute and tucked away the resulting penalty.

Victory moved Tottenham provisionally into ninth place in the 36-team table with 11 points from six games, although they could drop lower after Wednesday's games.

Slavia were slick on the ball and created several good chances but remain on three points and face an uphill battle in their final two games to scrape into the playoff positions.

Tottenham great Son Heung-min, who left the club in the summer after being part of the Europa League-winning side, was welcomed back for a pre-match walk-on.

The South Korean forward scored 173 goals during his Tottenham career and has been badly missed at times during a rocky start to the Frank reign in north London.

But there are signs that Tottenham are beginning to gel, especially in attack, with players such as Kudus and Simons starting to deliver on their potential.

Tottenham took a 22-game unbeaten home run in Europe into