Tottenham ‘showed character and fight’ says Mauricio Pochettino

'We are in a good place and I'm very pleased today that we showed character' said the Spurs manager after his side's 2-1 win over Swansea City on Sunday.

Tottenham's Christian Eriksen celebrates after scoring the winner on Sunday against Swansea City for a 2-1 Premier League victory. Stu Forster / Getty Images / December 14, 2014
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Mauricio Pochettino was delighted with the strength of character shown by his Tottenham side after their last-gasp 2-1 Premier League victory over Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium.

Christian Eriksen earned the visitors all three points with an 88th minute goal, after Wilfried Bony had cancelled out Harry Kane’s early header.

It was enough to lift Tottenham into seventh place in the table and earn them a first win in four games.

“It was an important win, but it is also important to show character and fight and we did that,” said Pochettino.

“They are a very good side with good players and it’s not easy to get three points here.

“We scored a late goal, but in football it happens. Swansea pushed us after their goal and maybe they were better than us in that period. But we were always alive in the game and it was a great goal.”

He added: “When you arrive at a new club, with different players, you need time to try and put your ideas across to the squad. However, we are in a good place and I’m very pleased today that we showed that character.

“Christian is still young and this is only his second season in England, but he is a great talent and a very important player for us.”

Having made changes after the midweek Europa League trip to Besiktas, Pochettino said: “We needed to manage our players after the game in midweek. If you make changes and you win, you are an unbelievable manager, but if I had have changed things and we had have lost, it wouldn’t have been like that.”

Swansea manager Garry Monk lamented his team’s lack of a killer punch in front of goal.

“It was sickening. I couldn’t see that coming to be honest, but two individual errors have cost us. And, of course, we were not clinical enough at the other end.

“We created enough chances to score a number of goals. I was pleased with the way we regained momentum after their first goal and to be honest, after we scored it was one way traffic. If it was a boxing match, they would have called it off.

“It was certainly more a case of us losing it, than Spurs winning it. It’s hard to take that we have come away with nothing. They had a couple of counter-attacks but they were hanging on at times. When it’s like that, you have to kill off sides. We didn’t and it came back to haunt us again.”

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