Tottenham 'keeper Guglielmo Vicario slammed the “attitude and fight” of his tame team after a horrible defeat at Crystal Palace.
And Ange Postecoglou admitted his side lost “the battle” against their South London rivals. Jean-Philippe Mateta netted the only goal of the game to see the Eagles lift themselves out of the bottom three.
But Italy star Vicario said: "They fight and I think we lacked that today. We are disappointed because we have to fight. We play good football but maybe sometimes we lack the desire to fight. They show a real desire to fight for something. I think we lacked a bit of energy and to be better than them.
Captain Son Heung-min was out injured but Vicario added: “He is the captain but we have a big squad and we have to deal with that. We have to be able to win games without Son. We lacked in something, not in football, but attitude and fight."
Head coach Ange Postecoglou said his team had fallen into the “trap” of trying to play Palace at their own game .
“It turned into a bit of a battle,” said the Aussie. “They dealt with it better than we did. It was a big game for Palace - they were always going to be desperate to get a win and that happens. It was a game we needed to stay composed and not sort of fall into the trap of trying to play the game ultimately Palace wanted to play.
"It turned into a game that was battle after battle, duels, stop starts, waiting around. We need to be a lot more clear-headed about how we deal with that rather than fall into the trap of doing what we did today.
“I just felt when we had control of things, we could have dealt with it better. We ended up doing silly things, giving away silly fouls and losing our composure, which just adds to that sort of game when you can't get any traction.
"So I think we directed our frustration in the wrong way rather than dealing with it like we should have.”