Mauricio Pochettino has stressed the importance of the result for Tottenham Hotspur, despite a lacklustre performance following their 1-0 win at home over Cardiff City.
Tottenham dominated proceedings from the first minute at Wembley and took an early lead through Eric Dier, who slotted in a mishit header from a Davinson Sanchez header in the eighth minute. The home side continued to dominate and pushed forward to get the second goal but it almost went pear-shaped for them midway through the first half.
Out of nowhere Cardiff almost scored the equaliser as Callum Paterson beat two Spurs defenders and won a flick on and Josh Murphy flicked the ball over a hesitant Hugo Lloris in the Tottenham goal. But disaster was averted as Toby Alderweireld made a brilliant last-ditch slide to clear the ball off the line.
Cardiff defended stoutly for the rest of the half and frequently put their bodies on the line to keep the deficit down to only one goal. Lucas Moura missed a golden opportunity towards the end of the half when he couldn’t keep his header down after meeting a cross from Kieran Trippier.
Tottenham came out flying in the second half and Harry Kane had his header saved by Neil Etheridge. Lucas sent the rebound towards the goal but was denied by Sean Morrison, who blocked the ball on the line in the first minute after the break.
The away side’s chances of getting back into the game received a blow when Joe Ralls was sent off for cynically hacking down Lucas at the hour mark. Cardiff were angry but Ralls made no attempt to play the ball and the referee felt it deserved a red card.
However, Cardiff almost scored an equaliser when a deep free-kick found Morrison at the back post but his header hit the woodwork to the despair of the away support.
Tottenham continued to struggle to put the game to bed as the home fans got jittery towards the end of the tightly fought contest. But Spurs managed to hold on to their narrow 1-0 lead and post three points on the board.
Pochettino stressed the importance of the win after a difficult midweek game against Barcelona and insisted that his side could have scored more goals despite the narrow nature of the result.
The Spurs boss told the BBC: "After Barcelona on Wednesday, the most important thing was to win.
“We created a lot of chances but we didn't kill the game.
"I'm happy to finish with 18 points going into the international break.
"We only conceded a few chances and we finished the game on top.”
Pochettino is looking forward to the two-week break but is keen to have some of the injured players back in the squad ahead of the rigorous schedule after the international break.
"We are one point off the top of the Premier League but we need to improve a lot.
"Now we have two weeks before the next game but it is a very tough schedule when we return.
“We hope that more of our players will be available after the break."
