Harry Winks thinks Tottenham have shown they can “never be written off” after snatching late wins to stay in the Premier League title race.
Spurs, who face Leicester live on Sky Sports on Sunday, have scored late goals to beat Fulham, Watford and Newcastle over the last month.
With Liverpool and Manchester City both dropping points, Spurs are five points behind Premier League leaders City with 13 games left to play.
Asked about the significance of Spurs’ last-gap wins, Winks, who scored the winner against Fulham, told Sky Sports: “We can never be written off, that’s the most important thing.
“We’ve scored a lot of late goals and it shows how much we persevere in a match and that the manager’s instilled a never-say-die attitude in the lads, and we know the game doesn’t finish until the final whistle
“If we continue to press the team and try to get the opposition on the back foot until the final minute, we know we’re more than capable of scoring. We’ve done that this season.”
Spurs’ victories have been even more impressive as they have come without injured duo Harry Kane and Dele Alli, while Heung-Min Son missed most of January as he was at the Asian Cup.
“It spurred us on,” says Winks about Spurs being without three of their top players
“We’ve got a great squad, with great players, Harry, Dele and Sonny are top players and have been the pinnacle of our team but we have players who can step in who are just as good and can performance at the level and they’ve shown that in the last few weeks with some of the results we’ve had.
“Fernando (Llorente) stepping up with some important goals has been great.
“We’re more than capable of challenging. We’ve had some great results against big sides this year, but it’s a long way. There’s a lot of matches to go this season, and the table’s fluctuating all the time.
“One minute we’re top, then we’re third battling for fourth. If we keep winning our matches there’s no reason why we can’t, but all we can really do is focus on the next game ahead of us and winning all our matches. We’ll see where that gets us.”
Winks also admits Spurs are enjoying being somewhat under the radar, with most of the title talk revolving around Liverpool and City.
“It’s nice not to have all the eyes and spotlight on us,” he says.
“We just continue our business behind the scenes, doing what we do best without too much influence from others. One week we’re title contenders and the next we’re just trying to get in the top four, so I understand how it changes every week or so.
“We have to stay balanced with how we think and not get too carried away with media and the results.”
(Sky Sports)