Thomas Frank admitted he was disappointed with our second-half performance in Wednesday night’s goalless draw in Monaco.
We endured a frustrating evening at Stade Louis II, with Guglielmo Vicario by far the busiest of the two goalkeepers as he produced a string of fine saves to prevent the Ligue 1 hosts from claiming victory, while we struggled to produce much in the way of chances at the other end.
All told, we emerged with a point and our unbeaten record in the Champions League intact after three games, but Head Coach Thomas was frustrated with our lack of intensity at times in the second period, although he hailed goalkeeper ‘Vic’ for his outstanding efforts to ensure we took something away from the contest.
“We're definitely learning in the Champions League away against a very good Monaco side – I said that before the game and it doesn't surprise me that they hit a good level today,” he told SPURSPLAY.
“It was a relatively even first half, but in the second half Monaco were better than us and we didn’t hit the performance level we wanted. We didn’t play with that intensity we want, which is the big thing. Then there were too many individual errors, passes that didn’t hit the level. Sometimes that can happen and we didn’t do that today.
“It’s a contrast to the last game against Aston Villa where we played with good intensity, had a very competitive performance and basically gave nothing away and Vic didn’t have a save. Then in this game, we didn’t play with enough intensity – especially in the second half – and needed Vic nine times, which of course we’d like to defend better as that’s too much in general. But sometimes you need your keeper, it can happen in football and Vic was fantastic tonight.
“The team definitely wanted to defend the goal and did everything to do that. Sometimes you can’t hit a high enough level which we didn’t today and then you take a point and clean sheet, which is good on a night where we didn’t hit a high level. I think the point, we’ll be more happy with in the end. Right now, in the moment, I’m disappointed with our performance, especially in the second half. Then we need to understand the learning of playing in the Champions League and against teams that are very competitive. We constantly need to learn and improve.”
Watch | Thomas Frank discusses Monaco draw on SPURSPLAY