Sunday 27 November 2016 07:48, UK
Tottenham Hotspur were the better team and deserved more after losing for the first time in the Premier League this season at Chelsea on Saturday, according to manager Mauricio Pochettino.
The north London club, looking to record their first top-flight victory at Stamford Bridge since 1989, opened the scoring early on through Christian Eriksen's long-range strike.
However, after Pedro had drawn the home side level with his own breathtaking goal moments before half-time, the Blues claimed all three points when Victor Moses slotted home six minutes into the second half.
Pochettino, though, praised his players' efforts after their midweek exertions against Monaco in the Champions League.
"It was a great goal from Pedro but if you analyse the whole game we deserved more, minimum the draw," he said.
"But you know football is sometimes difficult to explain. When you play better than your opponent and you lose the game, it's difficult to explain. They were clinical in front of the goal and we weren't.
"I have no concerns. After that game you can feel proud and the effort was brilliant. We came from Monaco which was difficult, tough to be out of the Champions league but the answer of the players was clear.
"Great mentality, good performance, we were better, but we lost. If you analyse the 92 minutes, Tottenham made a lot of opportunities. In football you need to score and defend well."
The Argentinian also claimed he had no regrets about making so many changes to his starting line-up in the Cote d'Azur on Tuesday night.
"I have no regret about changing the team in midweek," he said. "I think you are very, very focused on rotating the players and the names. I think football is about the squad.
"I can't explain every situation which happened and why it happened. I can only pick 11. If the result was different in Monaco, you would not ask me about that. There's no regret.
"We can only analyse why, what we need to change, the way we need to play. We are competing in the Premier League and Champions League and to be competitive you need to rest some players. We try to make the best decision for the team.
"We tried to do our job. We dominated the game. If you see the stats, they are for us. But football is not only about the stats. It is to score goals and defend the chances they created."
One area Pochettino does want his team to improve is their finishing in front of goal, with Chelsea proving to be far more clinical in that regard than their rivals.
"They needed less chances than us to score twice," he said. "We created more and only scored one. That was the difference. Both teams were very competitive, both teams fight a lot, both teams try to win the game.
"Maybe we were a little bit better, but in the result they win. When we conceded the goal we lost a little bit of control of the game."
