Champions League Defeat to Monaco Confuses Matters Again for Tottenham Hotspur

Despite the Premier League’s increasing ubiquity globally, not every football fan regularly follows the English game.

According to BBC Sport, ticket sales for Leicester City’s Champions League opener at Club Brugge were substantially lower than the Jan Breydel Stadium’s 29,000 capacity. If the Belgian club’s fans were underestimating the Foxes, as manager Michel Preud’homme suggested, they will be ruing doing so after Wednesday night’s 3-0 defeat.

Tottenham Hotspur played their own first group-stage game against Monaco like they were intent on giving unfamiliar viewers in Europe and beyond a crash course in what they were about. Unfortunately, that included plenty of the bad as well as the good.

The 2-1 loss that Mauricio Pochettino’s side suffered—Toby Alderweireld’s header reducing the deficit after Bernardo Silva and Thomas Lemar had fired the Ligue 1 club into the lead—has confused matters again somewhat for the north London club.

Saturday’s 4-1 win over Stoke City felt like them gaining a foothold in the new season. The ultimately assured performance mixed panache and perseverance, confidence at both ends of the pitch reminiscent of the best of the work that took Tottenham to within touching distance of the title, and eventually third place.

That brief Premier League reverie has been broken by the jarring realities of Champions League football. The bliss of victory and optimism giving way to a potentially demoralising uncertainty.

Wembley Way is all white! #SpursAtWembley #COYS pic.twitter.com/Ly6ohy02p2

— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) September 14, 2016

Tottenham  embraced the occasion, no doubt about that.

The final attendance was tallied at 85,011. Spurs fans made Wembley their own for this “home” game with scenes and—for periods at least—noise reminiscent of previous visits such as the 1981 FA Cup final replay.

Talking to his club’s media beforehand, manager Mauricio Pochettino described it as “a fantastic opportunity to show how big our club is and a fantastic moment to share with everyone.”

The players did their usual pre-match routine as if playing at White Hart Lane. Familiar staff and matchday elements were brought over to try to make the enforced venue change feel less intimidating and/or irritating.

Based on the opening, the efforts seemed to be paying off.

Heung-Min Son, selected again in attacking midfield after his brace against Stoke, had a shot cleared after a Harry Kane cross invitingly worked its way to him. With hindsight, he could have been better served passing to the centrally positioned Dele Alli.

Alli started in central midfield again alongside Eric Dier rather than his more usual advanced role. He was still getting forward, though, and had a shot blocked when Kane’s cut-back for Erik Lamela fell instead for him.

Spurs looked in the ascendancy. A goal seemed an inevitability against a Monaco side struggling to contain them.

Such assumptions often presage a fall.

The all-too-early turning point of the game came in a moment that betrayed such complacency from the players, too. The club was ready for the occasion, but the team was not for the more pressing task of winning a football match

In his own half on the 15th minute, Lamela casually looked to pass forward through the Monaco lines. Fabinho intercepted, Silva raced forward—too easily beating both Ben Davies and Jan Vertonghen—and fired the Principality club into an unexpected lead.

Where Tottenham had looked like taking advantage of the larger dimensions of the Wembley pitch—stretching Monaco using the width of …

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