Mauricio Pochettino struggles to hide anger as Tottenham blow lead at Wembley to Burnley

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Mauricio Pochettino could not conceal his fury with his Tottenham players after they conceded an added-time equaliser at Wembley today. The Spurs defence parted to allow Chris Wood to make it 1-1, in a way Pochettino said he simply could not accept.

This was Spurs’ latest poor Wembley result but Pochettino refused any suggestion that the new stadium was to blame, always putting the responsibility back on himself and his players instead. If any of his players were considering hiding behind the Wembley excuse, Pochettino demanded, they must stop now.

“I feel disappointed because we showed a lack of concentration at the end,” an exasperated Pochettino said of Wood’s equaliser. “We conceded a goal with five or six players behind the ball. That was our mistake. We need to take responsibility, and that was our fault.”

Pochettino went back to the detail of Wood’s equaliser to make clear how angry he was with his players. Burnley create chances through their direct play but, as Pochettino explained, this was not one of those.

“I think the control was good,” he said. “But very disappointed in the way that we concede the goal. Because it wasn’t a long ball, a second ball, or a ball in the air. It was a pass in between our lines, where we did not run the right way, and we gave them the chance to score so easily. That is a little bit tough to accept. Because when you have the three points in your hand, you need to concede in a different way. Not in that way.”

This was Spurs’ eighth Wembley game under Pochettino and they have still one won one, against CSKA Moscow last year. But Pochettino has been very clear this season that his players cannot use Wembley as an excuse and today he hammered that message home again. He would not accept his players hiding behind the Wembley explanation.

“It is nothing to do with it,” Pochettino insisted. “We cannot complain. If some people are thinking about that, they need to stop. We have the responsibility to do better, to try to win. And the way that today we concede the goal, I cannot tell you, it wasn’t the problem with Wembley.”

Despite his frustrations, Pochettino was confident that Spurs would add new players over the final few days of the transfer window. “Now we have to try to keep a good balance and try to keep positive,” Pochettino said. “We can only be positive. For sure we will add some players who will help us in the future. I am so optimistic.”

Burnley manager Sean Dyche was delighted with his players’ application to keep going and get the point. “Our mentality is purely to keep going until the last breath,” he said. “We’ve done it many times in my time at Burnley, I believe in the players absolutely every time I put them out there to give everything they can until the last breath of the game and I thought we did that against Tottenham."