Pochettino: Spurs need that edge
Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino believes his side's lack of passion has been an issue for a few weeks, not just in their 2-1 Champions League defeat to Monaco.
Spurs started their campaign at their new European home of Wembley with a defeat in front of a crowd of more than 85,000.
Monaco led after just 15 minutes through Bernardo Silva and they doubled the advantage just past the half-hour mark through Thomas Lemar.
Toby Alderweireld pulled a goal back on the stroke of half-time but the home side could not find an equaliser.
Pochettino said afterwards: "I was speaking with my players at half-time. I think we needed more control in the centre of midfield, we needed to move Dele Alli up the pitch to be more aggressive.
"(The lack of passion) is not new. I think we were better than Monaco, we need to win games, we need to be more aggressive with the ball.
"We need to play the way we are meant to play. They played in a very comfortable position.
"It is a fantastic opportunity, we have worked hard to be here and we need to be better."
Monaco manager Leonardo Jardim admitted he used his team's 2-1 win at the Emirates in last season's Champions League in preparation for their latest match in London.
He said: "We tried to think back to when we won against Arsenal at the Emirates, similar surroundings and size (of stadium) - so that is what we used going into the game.
"Players love to play in a huge, full stadium, I think the size of the pitch affected Tottenham more than it did us."
Nabil Dirar was forced off just five minutes into the game due to injury and whilst it was not part of the plan to change players until the second half, the Monaco boss acknowledged it worked out well.
Jardim added: "We will have a look at Dirar (to assess the level of injury). It did upset us tactically, we didn't want to make such an early substitution.
"We wanted to keep our substitutions until later but it was a happy substitution in the end because he scored the second goal, so it all worked out well for us."
