Toby Alderweireld feels Tottenham Hotspur clearly bossed their Champions League group stage opener against Monaco, but could not turn their domination into goals, as they slipped to a 2-0 defeat.
In front of over 85,000 at Wembley, Tottenham began brightly and had much the better of the play. However, a mistake by Erik Lamela, who gave the ball away in a dangerous 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.
Monaco then took advantage of another defensive error when a cross was headed by Ben Davies into the path of Thomas Lemar in the penalty area and he made no mistake, hammering his shot past Hugo Lloris.
Spurs were reeling, but they were able to rally themselves to grab one back before half time, as Lamela picked out Alderweireld from a corner and he powered his header goalwards.
Tottenham were on top from the restart, but saw a penalty appeal for a challenge on Dele Alli waves away by the referee.
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The north London side intensified their efforts, Harry Kane having a shot saved, while Moussa Sissoko was brought on with around ten minutes to go.
But it was to no avail as Monaco stood firm, seeing out the game and claiming a 2-1 win.
And for Alderweireld, Spurs just could not hit the back of the net when it mattered.
"Scoring creates momentum and we dominated the game in the second half", he told BT Sport.
"We had chances, but we couldn't score.
"We put a lot of energy in, but we couldn't force it", the defender added.
