Thomas on Dominic: "He gave everything" | OneFootball

Thomas Frank was delighted to have Dominic Solanke in the starting XI for the first time this season, declaring 'he gave so much to the team' after our 2-0 win against Borussia Dortmund in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday evening.

A persistent ankle issue kept the striker sidelined from August until finally appearing back off the bench against Villa on 10 January. He did the same against West Ham before finally stepping out for what was his first start of the season, first start under Thomas and debut in the Champions League.

He responded immediately with his first goal in the competition, tucking home Wilson Odobert's cross after 37 minutes to hand us a 2-0 cushion against the Bundesliga giants, then down to 10 men. Cuti Romero had earlier headed us into the lead on 14 minutes as we did all the damage in the first half.

Asked about Dom's contribution afterwards, Thomas told us: "You could see today his link-up play, his hold-up play... I think he could have scored maybe one or two goals more, because I think he just missed the timing to arrive, just a little bit.

"He has a good connection with Pedro, for example, but when he hasn't played for a while... but also his work ethic. He works so hard. I know he was not match fit, but I would say he went so much all-in that after 65 (minutes), he'd done everything."

Thomas also spoke about Dominic and Destiny Udogie's (his first start since 2 December) performance in his post-match press conference.

"Destiny, he was definitely one of the ones I was talking about yesterday (in terms of playing through the pain barrier). We were constantly talking, 'should we swap him in or not?' and he was sometimes bombarding forward. I was thinking, 'oh no, Dest, please, come on, calm now, be a little bit clever'.

"Dom is the one that is normally a physical beast, but he's been out for so long. He gave everything, and I think he gave so much to the team. Of course, he also scored a great goal with a triple contact to get it over the line - very good to have the two of them on the pitch."

That made it four wins out of four and four clean sheets at home in this season's UCL league phase, stretching our unbeaten run in N17 in Europe to 24 matches. We're also guaranteed to progress - a place in the play-offs now secured, with top eight outright or a seeded place in the play-off round, very much on the table when we face Eintracht Frankfurt in MD8 in Germany next week.