We also played against Monaco in an August 2013 pre-season friendly.
Spurs are unbeaten in their two Champions League games played so far and sit in 9th place at this early juncture. Monaco lost badly in Belgium to Club Brugge, but held Manchester City to a 2-2 draw in the "Stade Louis II" stadium thanks to a 90th minute Eric Dier penalty. They are 30th in the placings.
Eric Dier, who scored on his Spurs debut at Upton Park 11 years ago, is now 31, and transferred to Monaco from Bayern Munich at the end of last season. Eric made a total of 365 appearances for Spurs (24th in our all-time list), including 274 Premier League games. Eric was a playing substitute in our 2019 Champions League Final and has 49 England caps, the last of which was 3 years ago. Sadly, Eric recently suffered a hamstring injury and will not be fit to play tomorrow (8pm UK time - TNT/DISCOVERY).
Monaco qualified for the Champions League after finishing third in last year's Ligue One table, 23 points behind champions PSG. Our opponents were also in the Champions League last season, reaching the first knock-out phase when they were beaten by Benfica.
Monaco's top league scorer last season was 22-year-old Danish international Mika Biereth with 13 goals. He's scored once so far this season.
Monaco have suffered a dip in form lately and have recently appointed Sebastien Pocognoli as their new head coach, replacing Adi Hutter. As a player, Pocognoli was on West Brom's books between 2014 and 2016, spending the 2016/17 season on loan with Brighton in their last Championship season. A Belgian national, Pocognoli ended his playing career with Union Saint-Gilloise, who he coached over the last two seasons. Last season they reached the Europa League round of 32, and they are in the 36-team Champions League this season.
Monaco's recent form has been to lose away to Lorient before drawing three games, including that 2-2 against Man City. They also drew 2-2 against their local rivals in the French League - Nice.
22-year-old Ansu Fati (23 on 31st October) is a Barcelona player on loan. He spent the 23/24 season on loan with Brighton making 3 Premier League starts and 16 substitute appearances. Born in Bissau, he has Spanish nationality, but made his last senior international appearance 2 years ago. Ansu Fati is Monaco's top scorer so far this season, having scored 5 goals, three of which were from the penalty spot. He scored both goals against Nice from the spot.
Monaco's scorer in Saturday's draw against Angers was former Arsenal man USA international Folarin Balogun. Balogun made only two Premier League appearances for Arsenal, and spent most of the 21/22 season on loan at Middlesbrough. This is his third season with Monaco, who have slipped to seventh in Ligue 1.
Monaco's stadium capacity is 18,523, but they rarely reach that and this season's best figure was 11,734 on day one. The travelling Spurs fans will make plenty of noise and hopefully urge us to victory, but that will need a far better team performance than that seen on Sunday.
It's too early for team news, but I suspect Romero won't be risked. Thomas Frank needs to shake up the midfield and I expect Bergvall to start. Richarlison will surely lead the line. We might have to be happy to retain our unbeaten record with a draw. After all, we have yet to lose any away game this season - apart from the penalty shoot-out in the super cup against PSG.
Referee Marco Guida and all his officials are from Italy. This will be the second time Signor Guida has had charge of a Spurs game. the other occasion was six years ago to the day when we beat Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) 5-0 at home. That was our best Champions League result yet. Mauricio Pochettino was our manager and his last European game in charge of Spurs was the return match in Belgrade which we also won (4-0).
So far this season, Signor Guida has refereed just three domestic games and six European and International matches.
Did you know? - former Juventus and Manchester United star Paul Pogba signed in summer for Monaco, but has yet to make an appearance. Pogba is included in Monaco's Champions League squad list.
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