Leonardo Jardim admits that Monaco’s win over Arsenal two years ago played a key role in helping him to prepare his players mentally for last night’s victory over Tottenham Hotspur.
In their first Champions League encounter in five years, Tottenham failed to light up Wembley and suffered a narrow 2-1 defeat at the hands of Ligue 1 outfit Monaco.
Monaco raced to a two-goal lead within the first half hour into the Champions League group game and while Toby Alderweireld reduced the deficit on the stroke of half-time, Spurs failed to find an equaliser in the second half.
The Ligue 1 outfit have been a thorn in the flesh of English teams in recent years, and also knocked out Arsenal a couple of seasons ago in the Champions League Round of 16, which included a famous 3-1 win at the Emirates in the first leg.
And Jardim admits that the win played a key role in helping his side prepare mentally for their trip to Wembley last night to take on Arsenal’s north London rivals.
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The Monaco boss told L’Equipe: “Our strategy was to stop most of their counter attacks, and their ability to recover the ball, as Tottenham are very strong in that area.
“We did a lot of work, and then mentally, we designed our victory on the one we got at Arsenal two years ago in the context of a large stadium and a noisy crowd.
“That gave us confidence.”
Tottenham will travel to Russia later this month to take on CSKA Moscow in their next group game, with three points having become more important now.
