Ange Postecoglou admitted Tottenham Hotspur’s players are becoming increasingly desperate as they slumped to another defeat, having won just one of their past seven games.

“When I look at today’s performance I don’t see them lacking confidence or belief,” the Tottenham head coach said. “It’s probably the other way. Both penalties we conceded were born out of desperation.

“I think they are desperate to turn our season around and are really disappointed how it has gone. When you’re in that mood you kind of lose that composure and discipline you need.”

Postecoglou added: “It becomes a self-fulfilling thing where you are almost expecting things to go wrong.”

Spurs were certainly guilty of a lack of discipline as they recklessly conceded two penalties to Chelsea in a 4-3 result that lifted Enzo Maresca’s side into second place, four points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool.

Postecoglou vented his frustration at some of the decisions from the officials led by referee Anthony Taylor and VAR Jarred Gillett. Spurs were particularly incensed after Chelsea’s Moises Caicedo escaped a red card for a late, high challenge on Pape Sarr in the first half.

‘Referees avoid big decisions because they’ll go to VAR’

“I think it’s kind of where we’re at with the current state of football, where people are just frozen to make big decisions,” Postecoglou argued. “I think referees don’t want to make them because they’ll go to VAR and VAR doesn’t want to intervene, so you’re kind of left in no man’s land. There’s a couple of decisions I thought today definitely went against us.”

Postecoglou said the defeat, which undoubtedly piles the pressure on him, was a “painful one” with Spurs blowing an early 2-0 lead.

“Both penalties were poor on our behalf. They’re self-inflicted and unnecessary challenges. We’ve given them two goals for no reason and given ourselves a mountain to climb which proved too hard,” he said with fresh injury concerns over Cristian Romero – who lasted just 14 minutes on his comeback – and Micky van de Ven.

“Romero is just obviously hugely disappointing. He felt something in his quad,” Postecoglou said. “It’s not like I’ve got a multitude of options there, so, you know, you’ve got to make these decisions. Both players trained and tried well, and they both wanted to help.

“It’s just the space we’re in at the moment. We just don’t seem to get that sort of ability to just gain some traction. Every time we’ve seemed to, something comes along and disrupts us.”

Son Heung-min said he felt like he let the team down after missing a glorious chance, when he ran through on goal, at 2-2.

He added: “I feel the pain because it’s such an important moment of the game… but I think it’s time the players also need to step up.”

Liverpool players don’t slide like Cucurella, jokes Maresca

Maresca admitted his team were ahead of schedule “in terms of the way we play on the ball, off the ball and in terms of the results”. He added: “Arsenal, City and Liverpool probably don’t slide – like Cucurella did. To be serious, we are not ready, we are far from these teams but we focus on day-by-day and trying to improve the team.”

That was in reference to Marc Cucurella, who slipped over for both of Spurs’ goals, before having to change his boots.

“It’s more a question for Marc.” Maresca said. “They are mature enough to decide what boots they need for the game. The most important thing is that we were 2-0 [down] but we continued the same way to create chances.”

At the final whistle he and the Chelsea players went over to the away supporters. “The celebration at the end was because I was very happy at the way we came back,” Maresca said. “Mentally, we showed how strong we are. Overall we deserved to win the game.”