The most depressing thing about Spurs’ Champions League campaign this season is that the phrase ‘fun whilst it lasted’ does not even come close to being at all suitable.
In truth, Spurs have had a torrid time of it in Europe’s premier competition this year and went from calamity to calamity, winding up by getting outclassed by Monaco tonight to see them crash out of the tournament.
Not even the most ardent Lilywhite can say they deserved to progress, either, with them being consistently underwhelming in the competition despite being in a group that, at the start of it all looked (whisper it quietly) winnable.
Heady days indeed but oh how Spurs have come down with a bump since. They lost 2-1 tonight to the Ligue 1 outfit when it could have been more and will now have just the Europa League to play for in the final round of fixtures.
An embarrassing night for Spurs, then, and here are five pictures to help sum all of it up…
Son fluffs his lines
Heung-Min Son had the chance to settle the early Spurs nerves after he sprung away from an incredibly high Monaco defensive line and went clean through with a good amount of time to decide what he was going to do.
Indeed, it looked as though he had too much time as he attempted to round the ‘keeper and instead pushed himself far too wide. He desperately squared the ball in an attempt to spare his blushes but Monaco had regrouped and the chance was long gone.
Lloris at it again
Hugo Lloris once again proved just how indispensable he is to this Tottenham team.
In the Champions League this year he has been absolutely crucial and without him it’s more than likely Spurs would have already been out before this point.
With this penalty he highlighted his world class abilities to get down low to his right and parry away before having to switch on once again for the remainder of the half. Lloris has easily been Spurs’ best player in the competition this season.
Cue madness
Djibril Sidibe nodded home to open the scoring for Monaco on the night and sparked an incredible chain of events for the ensuing four or five minutes after.
It was a lovely, worked goal from the Ligue 1 side as Sidibe beat the inundated Hugo Lloris just after half-time. It was a massive wake up call for Spurs who would go on to respond and then immediately blow it again.
Kane offers brief hope
Spurs quickly won a penalty after conceding and despite Harry Kane seeing his strike get a hand to it from Danijel Subasic in the Monaco net it had enough power to nestle in the corner and give the Spurs fans a glimmer of hope.
Surely, they’d go on to at least get a point from this, then, you could hear the Lilywhites supporters thinking ‘they’ve been poor up to this point but they’ll be alert to everything now, won’t they? Won’t they?’
Lemar makes it two
They won’t. After Harry Kane’s penalty you’d have expected Spurs to just shut up shop for a minute and regroup after a frantic start to the second half but they did the exact opposite.
The Lilywhites were asleep from the restart at 1-1 and seconds later found themselves kicking off from the centre circle as Thomas Lemar drove home from close range across Lloris. It was the kind of moment that made you think one thing; ‘only Spurs could do this.’
