THE miracle may have evaded us but it's probably one of the painless defeats I've known as a Spurs fan.

It could have all gone so differently against Real Madrid last night had one of our trio of first-half penalty shouts been rewarded with a spot-kick, not least after Luka Modric was scythed down in the box just yards in front of referee Nicola Rizzi.

That, an offside goal in which the offending player should have stayed on, and a sitter spooned high and wide by Roman Pavlyuchenko could have sent us in three up at half-time, with a realistic chance of securing the mother of all comebacks.

But, alas, Harry's dream was not to be.

Cristiano Ronaldo's glorified toe-poke officially settled matters after the interval but the fact that we hadn't found the net by that point meant the tie was already over.

The coming week will be a real test of the player's mettle as we must switch our entire focus to the remaining Premier League games and the need to string together some decent results.

Champions League football – someone may have said once, somewhere – is like a drug. I don't want this to be my last fix, and nor to any other Spurs fans.

We face Arsenal early next week and although the title-chasing side are on good form there is no reason why we can't cause an upset, especially if we can play the kind of buccaneering football with which we have tormented some of the best sides in Europe.