The Warm-Up: Tottenham's Dier state of affairs

Taking on Chelsea in a League Cup semi-final last night with an attack which has suffered more casualties than the Light Brigade, Tottenham’s rather depressing fortnight continued as they were eliminated 4-2 on penalties.

No Harry, no Dele and no Sonny left a depleted Spurs side struggling to keep up at Stamford Bridge. Fernando Llorente scored a rare goal to bring Spurs back level on aggregate after efforts from N’Golo ‘not a holding midfielder any more’ Kante and Eden ‘not a leader’ Hazard and with no extra-time to play it was straight into spot-kicks.

Given how poor extra-time can often be, The Warm-Up can only applaud the new rules which give you those sweet, sweet penalties directly into your veins. It made for a frantic end to the regulation 90 minutes - during which Olivier Giroud really should have scored a winner - and an immediate hit of drama.

Strangely enough, the villain turned out to be the man who was the hero for England against Colombia as Eric Dier spanked his effort over the bar; Lucas Moura followed up with an ill-advised choice to go to the far right (thanks to everyone with an interest in Brazilian politics and football who made that joke on Twitter last night).

It’s been a bit of a brutal season for Dier. His form has slipped, his ‘shush’ celebration after scoring against Arsenal was quickly followed by his inadvertent role in two opposition goals in the 4-2 defeat at the start of December, and now this. That's also two defeats in three matches for Spurs. Ouch.

There have been the inevitable shouts of 'Spursy!' from gleeful rival fans on social media - but really, what club is likely to win a penalty shoot-out without its three best goalscorers?

All good things come to an end, and all bad things too. Thierry Henry’s reign as Monaco manager can be placed in the latter category after he was effectively sacked last yesterday, just 104 days and two league wins since getting the top job with the club which gave him his debut in professional football.

Monaco were a club in crisis when Henry took over and maybe he was always onto a loser. Either way, it became quite apparent that the job had overwhelmed him when he basically said yesterday he was going to sack off half his team.

And his replacement? Leonardo Jardim, who Monaco sacked three months ago in order to appoint Henry.

There was desperate news yesterday about missing Cardiff City striker Emiliano Sala as the active search for the £15m signing was called off, days after his small airplane went missing over the English Channel. Guernsey harbour master captain David Barker brought home the stark reality of the situation, saying: “The chances of survival at this stage are extremely remote."

Sala’s family have been imploring authorities not to stop searching and yesterday Sergio Aguero joined their voices with a post on Twitter.

Another Argentine, Gonzalo Higuain started his first official interview as a Chelsea player with a message for Sala too.

If you needed any proof that Gianfranco Zola is a good egg, video footage has emerged of the Chelsea assistant getting all the subs and staff to sit down to watch the penalties last night so as not to block the view of those sitting on the first few rows at Stamford Bridge.

Shout out to this excellent video chronicling Gary Lineker's lengthy torment of Alan Shearer for his failure to win the FA Cup.

As the two most decorated clubs in FA Cup history prepare to do battle tonight at Emirates Stadium, if only there was a quick little video summarising some of their epic meetings in the competition (albeit heavily weighted towards one team)...

And to balance things out a bit, it would be remiss not to post *the* iconic Arsenal-v-Manchester-United-in-the-FA-Cup moment:

One of the great games illuminated by one of the great goals.

Friday night football returns as Arsenal host Manchester United in an FA Cup fourth-round match at Emirates Stadium tonight.

And if you get in quick, you can watch Novak Djokovic’s Australian Open semi-final against Lucas Pouille live on Eurosport right about now.