Tottenham Hotspur thrashed by Borussia Dortmund in Europa League

Tottenham Hotspur are as good as out of the Europa League, falling to Borussia Dortmund 3-0 on Thursday evening. They could turn the result around in the second leg, but without an away goal, that's going to be highly unlikely. It's over.

Following a stretch of very difficult games, Mauricio Pochettino decided that his top players needed a rest, and essentially played a B-team at the Westfalenstadion. Though Dortmund were coming off a derby at the weekend, they're 16 points clear of third in the Bundesliga and have no reason not to pick league games to give their top players a rest. They played their best team, and it showed.

From the start, Spurs were completely overmatched. They actually did very well to keep the game scoreless for 30 minutes, when Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang broke the deadlock by heading a cross into the back of the net. And again, Spurs did very well to get into the dressing room only down 1-0.

Pochettino went in search of a decent result and an away goal, introducing all of Mousa Dembele, Erik Lamela and Harry Kane over the course of the second half. But they couldn't turn the game around going forward, defensively or in either transition phase. Spurs continued to be badly overmatched for the entire game.

Marco Reus scored Dortmund's final two goals. First, off a very well-worked set piece in the 61st minute, assisted by Neven Subotic with a headed pass. Nine minutes later, he picked up a pass from Gonzalo Castro in the box and completed a brace.

With that, Spurs have one competition to focus on. Let's win the league.