Skipper Hugo: 'Lessons were learned from Champions League experience'

Club captain Hugo Lloris was heartened by the way the team learned from their Champions League disappointments last season.

After an initial defeat to eventual semi-finalists Monaco in our first group stage match in the competition for six years, we picked up encouraging results away to CSKA Moscow and Bayer Leverkusen in the following games before ultimately falling away with back-to-back defeats to the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 sides.

A 3-1 victory over CSKA at Wembley on matchday six was academic as we had already been eliminated by that stage but, always a thoughtful individual, goalkeeper Hugo says the way the team bounced back and enjoyed a phenomenal run of form in the Premier League in the months that followed is a major plus as we anticipate another campaign at European football’s top table in 2017-18.

“The only disappointment was the Champions League,” said our French international skipper, casting his mind back to last term. “That was a strange campaign. It wasn’t Tottenham, it wasn’t our identity and we can have some regrets.

“I did question how we might deal with that back in the Premier League because we fought all last season to get into the Champions League and as soon as you are there, you fail – and not just the results but the way we played.

“The reaction of the team was fantastic, though, and step by step, we became stronger and stronger. That means we learned from our mistakes and that’s positive.”