Abject Champions League Exit Ranks as One of Tottenham's Biggest Disappointments

When Tottenham Hotspur finally secured qualification for the Champions League last season for the first time in five years it felt like an afterthought.

Manager Mauricio Pochettino and his side were in the middle of a fight for the Premier League title. After all the near-misses and heartaches of previous attempts to get back, they had skipped ahead and jumped straight into contention for a greater glory that regularly competing in Europe's top tier was supposed to be the best way of preparing them for.

When that challenge ended unsuccessfully, it was a nice consolation to know they still had completed that other objective. Unfortunately for their fans, the team that has taken to the field in the Champions League this season has played more like it was an unwanted consolation prize than a long-desired goal.

Tottenham's all-too-swift exit from the tournament was more complicated than that. Nevertheless, after a 2-1 defeat to AS Monaco confirmed their elimination, there are going to be plenty of questions asked about what went wrong.

Whatever Pochettino and his players offer up, what is certain is that this ranks as one of the biggest disappointments in the club's recent history. They were confident of coming out of Group E with grander nights to follow, but it is Monaco and Bayer Leverkusen who will progress instead.

"We know everything was good after the weekend—a great victory against West Ham to lift us, to recover that winning feeling," Pochettino told Tottenham's official website before Tuesday's game. "It's very important for us now. We know we must win and take the three points if we want to go to the next round."

As it turned out, staying in the Champions League was not as motivating to Spurs as coming from behind to see off London rivals West Ham United. In fairness, Monaco are a far better team than the Hammers.

They twice caught Spurs out at Wembley Stadium in September to win 2-1. On this occasion, they reaffirmed their superiority over the north Londoners by suffocating their attack and even more frequently highlighting their deficiencies down the other end.

West Ham gained some headway in the first half of their game by similarly exploiting the narrowness of the Spurs midfield. Monaco dominated the wide areas via the charging runs of full-backs Djibril Sidibe and Benjamin Mendy, as well as the calculated work of attackers Valere Germain and Bernardo Silva making the most of those distractions.

They did not have to contend with the presence of regular starting centre-back Jan Vertonghen as West Ham did. But even if Pochettino had not rested the Belgian to avoid Spurs losing another left-sided defender for Saturday's game with Chelsea (Danny Rose is suspended and Ben Davies likely out injured), Monaco might still have run riot.

Better organisation than offered by centre-backs Eric Dier and Kevin Wimmer—or anyone for that matter—could have stopped an unmarked Sidibe heading in Monaco's first goal. But with the Ligue 1 side brimming with such confidence, they would surely have found another way through.

You had to sympathise with Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Lloris. He made several saves—including the above penalty stop from Radamel Falcao and close-range save from Kamil Glik—to keep his team in the match.

Following on from similar heroics and other solid efforts in earlier games, he is one of the few Spurs men to have looked comfortable at this level.

The potential of the club for establishing itself as a Champions League-bothering outfit was one of the reasons the now-29-year-old chose them. That they have exited so prematurely after four years of trying will disappoint him greatly and perhaps impact on his inclination to extend his current contract beyond 2019.

Besides their captain, no other player can look back on their efforts up until now with too much pride—the final home game against CSKA Moscow on December 7 presents the chance for at least some minor redemption.

But for injury, Harry Kane may have made a difference to Spurs' fortunes. He scored what seemed a vital penalty here, only to have it cancelled out straight away by Thomas Lemar's goal. Bar one first-half miscue, decent opportunities were otherwise limited for the striker.

Claude Paris/Associated Press

Young midfielder Harry Winks gave a decent account of himself in his first Champions League start amid the trying circumstances of Pochettino’s surprising decision to stick with a too-narrow setup. Fellow academy man Josh Onomah and summer signing Georges-Kevin Nkoudou can also take heart in decent cameos earlier in the group stage.

All three could reasonably argue they could not have done much worse than the more experienced players who started ahead of them.

The hard-fought 1-0 win over CSKA Moscow was a good team performance. In the first half at Bayer Leverkusen, Tottenham threatened at times and were unlucky not to take the lead through chances for Dele Alli, Vincent Janssen and Erik Lamela.

Still, Spurs did not come off as a side likely to trouble any of the continent's big guns.

Even with Toby Alderweireld and Vertonghen at centre-back, the defence still struggled at home to Monaco. The use of Kieran Trippier in particular at right-back away from home did not work out so well; then again, even first-choice Kyle Walker struggled in his appearances.

As has been the case for most of the season, Mousa Dembele has looked a shadow of 2015-16's dominant midfield force. His partner for that campaign, Dier, has also underwhelmed, albeit playing at centre-back on a few occasions.

Christian Eriksen and Lamela showed little of the craft and well-channelled, team-enhancing off-ball efforts that previously made them so intrinsic to Spurs at their most aggressive. Alli has been eager but ultimately more bluster than anything, while new men Janssen and Victor Wanyama have played inconsistently at best.

It is tempting to say Tottenham were not good enough for the Champions League. If they could not beat two sides in Leverkusen and Monaco who were not even the best from their respective leagues, then they were never going to get far.

You could compare it to Harry Redknapp's 2010-11 side, who reached the quarter-finals, and say that group had more all-round experience, talent and depth. Yet the team of Gareth Bale, Aaron Lennon, Luka Modric, Rafael van der Vaart etc. never went as close as the current squad did to winning a Premier League crown.

The 2016-17 class were capable of doing better. Beyond analysing and criticising specific problems in performances, putting a finger on the reasons why they did not is too subjective.

Claude Paris/Associated Press

The following months will reveal more.

Tottenham will show if they are capable of mounting successive title challenges, or at least proving themselves still to be a top-four side. If they drop into the Europa League via a third-place finish, they will indicate if they have learned from European experiences this season and before—and if they can turn it into something productive to further the team’s competitive capabilities.

A generally positive response could reframe this Champions League disappointment as a blip, perhaps one step too far for a predominantly young team.

Failure to react sufficiently well may be an indicator that this disappointment was more prescient than we realised.

There is life beyond this hurt for Pochettino and his team this season, but they have to prove it quickly or find themselves coming under a lot more scrutiny.

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