Andre Villas-Boas admitted he was disappointed with Saturday's loss at AS Monaco, and pointed to the home team's two-goal burst at the start of the second half as the key spell.

With a number of players missing the friendly, Andre was also quick to point out 'we're better than this result', but said we'd learn lessons and look to improve for the visit of Espanyol to the Lane on Saturday week, August 10, our final pre-season encounter before the big kick-off at Crystal Palace on Sunday, August 18.

Chances were few and far between in the first half at Stade Louis II.

Andrea Raggi volleyed home the opener for Monaco on 14 minutes but having lost Jermain Defoe early to injury, we settled and had a couple of attempts through Harry Kane and Kyle Walker.

Monaco blasted out of the traps at the start of the second half though and five minutes in, it was 3-0 courtesy of Lucas Ocampos and Falcao.

Harry finished well one-on-one to give us hope at 3-1 on 57 minutes but it was short-lived as another quick double from Monaco via Mounir Obbadi and Falcao put them out of reach.

It was left to Andros Townsend to have the final say with a cracker five minutes from time, cutting inside and drilling home from 25 yards.

"Obviously, we're a bit disappointed," said Andre.

"The first half wasn't good for either team, played at a slow tempo and both teams only really had one chance at goal.

"We had a good meeting at half-time and the problem was that we conceded the two goals straight away.

"We wanted to avoid that because the players left the dressing room with the spirit that we could turn the game around and go on to win it.

"So we paid a price for that and it made it difficult for the second half.

"Monaco looked strong with individual quality, we made some mistakes and they punished us. We had belief that we could have got a better result but we'll now work hard to improve before the season starts.

"We were missing lots of players and they will help us improve, but we wanted to do better. We're aware we're better than this, but we'll take our lessons from it."

Meanwhile, Andre reported that Jermain was substituted early as a precaution after feeling tightness in his hamstring.