Spurs 1-2 Leicester City | Ange's verdict

Ange Postecoglou reiterated how the players are ‘giving everything’ after a 2-1 loss against Leicester City in the Premier League at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday.

We started well and deserved our lead when Richarlison stooped to head home Pedro Porro’s cross on 33 minutes. It might have been more but for the combination of the woodwork and Foxes goalkeeper Jakub Stolarczyk, who denied Richy, Pedro and Heung-Min Son.

The picture changed at the start of the second half as Leicester turned the game around. Jamie Vardy converted from close range less than a minute after the restart before Bilal El Khannouss curled home from 20 yards for 2-1 four minutes later. The visitors threatened little after that, while we pushed for an equaliser without creating too many clear-cut chances, although Porro struck the crossbar with a free-kick.

“It was a tough one to take,” said Ange, speaking to us on the Review Show. “Aside from that five-minute patch after half-time I thought we controlled the game well. We had enough chances to win the game, but things didn’t drop our way. Again, and I’ll repeat myself, the players are giving everything they can, every bit of energy they’ve got. They’re trying as hard as they possibly can, but, ultimately, a disappointing day.”

Ange on how these results must be hitting him hard...

“Yes, it does, but at the same time I’m kind of responsible for it, so you’ve got take that on board. When you’re in this kind of position, you are looking at the people around you, I just feel the players, the staff, the people at the football club I deal with, they’re still totally supportive of what we’re trying to do, and that’s all you can ask for as a manager. That gives me the energy and I put aside my own disappointment and feelings and make sure I support the people who are trying as hard as they possibly can to turn this around.”

On that game-changing five minutes after half-time...

“You come out for the second half, know they are going to have a little energy, they are 1-0 down, we got caught a bit cold. It’s not just the physical fatigue; it’s the mental fatigue for this group of players who are constantly at it. They put in a massive shift on Thursday night to get the job done, had to back it up today, same group of players, some of them probably shouldn’t have been out there, we’re asking them to dig in as much as they can, and they are. From our perspective, that’s all you can ask for.”

On taking Richarlison off after 55 minutes...

“He’s actually feeling his groin. He probably should have come off at half-time, but he wanted to stay out there and do another 10 minutes. I could see he wasn’t moving very well, so we had to take him off. Pape was the same. He shouldn’t have started today, but we lost Madders really late, so we had to make a change and start with Pape. I can’t get away from the fact that these players are giving everything they can. They’ll get some help soon. In the next 10 days, two weeks, we’ll get some significant players back, and that will give a boost to the whole group. As I keep saying to the players and the staff, there are still great opportunities to make this season a special one for us, we need to dig deep and focus on that.”

On the chances of any players coming back into the frame for our UEFA Europa League MD8 clash against Elfsborg at home on Thursday night (8pm)...

“We’ll see. There are definitely a couple getting close, Micky and Cuti, they’ll be training with the group, and even just having them training is great. There are another couple who are not too far off, on the horizon as well, so that will definitely help.”