Tottenham striker Dominic Solanke has set his sights on both World Cup selection and Champions League success after marking his first start in eight months with a goal.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old had not started since Spurs\u2019 final match of last season against Brighton, having struggled with an ankle issue that required minor surgery and injections before finally improving. On Tuesday night, Solanke returned to the starting XI and scored the second goal in Tottenham\u2019s 2-0 win over Borussia Dortmund. Wilson Odobert\u2019s low cross ricocheted off Solanke\u2019s right foot, left foot, and then right foot again before crossing the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the cleanest finish, but I got to watch it in slow motion which was nice!\u201d he joked. \u201cI\u2019m just thrilled to be back on the pitch. Getting my first start since last season was a great feeling, but the win was the most important thing. Hopefully, we can build on that now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the past eight months, Solanke described a challenging period as his ankle problems came and went before finally settling in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been one of the toughest periods of my life. It was really complicated and difficult, but I\u2019m just happy to be back and hope to stay fit for the rest of the season,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it reached the point where I\u2019d be out for the entire season, but there were times when I wasn\u2019t sure when I\u2019d return. Not having that clarity was the hardest part, so it\u2019s nice to have that behind me and to be back playing now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tottenham striker Dominic Solanke has set his sights on both World Cup selection and Champions League success after marking his first start in eight months with a goal. The 28-year-old had not started since Spurs\u2019 final match of last season against Brighton, having struggled with an ankle issue that required minor surgery and injections before …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":57730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_1428.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57731,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57729\/revisions\/57731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}