Mauricio's verdict on Leicester

Mauricio Pochettino admitted defeat was tough to take at Leicester City on Saturday.

Leading 1-0 at half-time via Harry Kane, we were on the wrong side of a VAR decision that would have seen us 2-0 up with 25 minutes left.

Instead, Serge Aurier’s goal was ruled out for a fractional offside decision against Heung-Min Son and Leicester, who had a goal chalked off by VAR in the first half, took advantage, initially levelling through Ricardo Pereira on 69 minutes before James Maddison rifled home the winner with five minutes left.

“It’s tough because I think we were the better side,” said Mauricio at the KP Stadium. “We had a bit of bad luck, the decision went against us today to make it 2-0 but in the end it was 1-1 and then 2-1 to Leicester.

“We cannot complain, we have to accept the rules, sometimes they are going to be of benefit to us and sometimes they are going to go against us.

“We were close to winning (if it had gone to 2-0) but that changed it completely and after that, you can concede a goal and when you concede and you are not solid, this can happen.

“We conceded two goals and then it’s difficult to win games like this. We played well, we need to be happy about the performance overall, but disappointed because we cannot maintain the result. In nearly all the games we were leading and always something happened where we conceded and we need to improve, if not, it will be tough to win games.”