Spurs began purposefully but were rocked when Bernardo Silva hammered in a drive off the far upright from a Monaco counterattack on 15 minutes.
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These sides met in the group stages of the Europa League this time previous year, with Spurs recording an emphatic 4-1 victory at White Hart Lane courtesy of an Erik Lamela hat trick.
“It is true that we had more chances, our positions, we were better than Monaco but they were more effective. They are in good form and they beat PSG just before the global break”, he said. “Tactically the fact we were playing on a very big pitch posed Tottenham problems because they like to apply pressure and that is much harder on a big pitch”.
“They know each other well because they are used to playing together, and they have good experience of the Champions League because they had a good run two years ago (when they beat Arsenal in the last 16 en route to the quarter-finals). It is important we show our commitment, and the player has to show his commitment for the future”.
Since making the move to White Hart Lane, Dier – who has 11 England caps – has shown up 8 7 club appereances and scored six goals.
Unfortunately for Pochettino, whose Spurs have won just two domestic titles in their history (the last in 1960-61) compared to Man United’s 20, Liverpool’s 18 and Arsenal’s 13, his side will need a turnaround to repeat the feat beyond the Champions League group phase.
“In terms of tactics and how we set up we were determined to stop Tottenham in their transitions”. We use different pitches on different days during the week.
This all came on a night when Spurs were better than Monaco anyway. Leonardo Jardim’s team have already eliminated Fenerbahce and Villarreal in order to qualify into the Champions League group stage draw this term, while winning three and losing none of their first four Ligue 1 fixtures. He’s a top player to play against so I hope I did handle him okay, yeah. “We need to pick ourselves up and make sure we win the next game”. Afterwards, it’s about football.
“We wait a lot to play the Champions League, we fight a lot last season to be here, and your feeling is ‘why don’t we do more?'”.
“It’s different to the Europa League”.
That’s a questions Spurs must answer before they resume their Champions League campaign in two weeks’ time. I think the size of the pitch affected Tottenham more than it did us. “It was good for us to start our story with a victory”.
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Left back Danny Rose will miss the game though because of a hamstring injury. However, a mistake by Erik Lamela, who gave the ball away in a unsafe area, allowed Monaco’s Bernardo Silva to curl a superb shot into the corner of the Spurs net, making it 1-0 to the visitors in the 16th minute.
