'I would like to keep the positives tonight'
On his side’s performance…
“I believe that we produced an excellent game and the positive side is that we were really superior to Tottenham. We produced the game we wanted to and put a lot of energy into the performance. The negative side is that we didn’t win and I believe that was down to a lack of maturity. I would like to keep the positives tonight because I believe we were really outstanding and I don’t believe that the lack of maturity is linked to experience.
“The maturity will improve with intelligence. I think my players are intelligent and they will learn from their mistakes. In life you must make the maximum with what you have. In a game like tonight we did not get the result that was available, we must think ‘how did that happen?’ and ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”
On failing to kill off Spurs…
“I believe we were too cautious, we wanted to keep the ball in a negative way instead of scoring goals number five and six. We were not going forward with enough purpose and that is why we were punished. I believe that defensively we made some mistakes.
“At 4-2 they had given up but then we let them back into the game. Then at 4-3 they have nothing to lose. We have lost the ball in the middle and we had two opportunities to score goal number five but we lost the ball.”
On Spurs deserving their point…
“You have seen the game like I have seen it. I let you judge that and I believe that we were closer to scoring goal number five than we were to conceding two in the last three minutes. With one minute to go we were 4-2 up so you couldn’t expect to drop points here.”
On building the side up ahead of the weekend’s trip to Stoke…
“They are deflated, of course. It is difficult because the players are very, very disappointed so it is my job to do that [build them back up] and it is my job to make sure there is no resentment against the mistakes we made. We dropped two points tonight and it is unfortunate because all of our opponents and title contenders won. Because of what we produced tonight we should have won. We made the minimum with the quality of our game.
“I believe there are a lot of positives after the game and the team can take a lot of encouragement from that. Nowadays you only judge the game by the result. Tonight we either go back home and say ‘we are not good enough’ or we think we have a fantastic side coming out here so let’s work hard to make the maximum with what we have in the team.”
On dealing with the Redknapp factor…
“I do not want to develop on that because with two minutes to go it was not a factor. But two minutes later it is a factor, it is very difficult to prove scientifically that it works.”
On the decision to withdraw Van Persie and Walcott…
“If you don’t do it and they score two goals, everybody says you made a big mistake by not securing the game. I wanted to put some height in the team so that we wouldn’t concede from corners. I take some responsibility for that but then again it is difficult to prove that we would have scored more if they had stayed on. Maybe we would have conceded three, you never know.”
On the lack of a defensive midfielder…
“I don’t know because I feel that Denilson had another outstanding game today. When we conceded the goal we had our defensive midfielders on the pitch. We had Song on the pitch who is a defender and midfielder when we conceded the two goals.”
On conceding another goal of the season contender…
“It was a great goal. Our keeper was a bit advanced and when he went back he got a touch on the ball. We know Bentley can do that because he is a great finisher from long distance.”
