Tottenham Hotspur will stand by under-fire manager Ange Postecoglou, according to reports, ahead of their Carabao Cup semi-final against Liverpool. The Reds trail to the north London club going into the second-leg at Anfield on February 6, after Spurs were gifted a controversial winner in the reverse leg.

Lucas Bergvall drilled home the only goal of the game late on in the first-leg but his effort came just moments after a cynical challenge on Kostas Tsimikas went unpunished. The Swede had been booked earlier in the proceedings after a trip on Luis Diaz but avoided a second yellow card before breaking the deadlock to hand Spurs the advantage.

Arne Slot's side have bounced back with four wins out of five after the defeat in early January. However, Spurs have endured a difficult run since the triumph where they needed extra time to beat non-league outfit Tamworth in the FA Cup, while they have lost three successive Premier League matches - including a harrowing defeat at home to Leicester City on Sunday.

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Football.London have reported that Daniel Levy has stood by the Australian despite the club sitting 15th in the table and eight points clear of the bottom four. It has been suggested that the current injury crisis in north London and the prospect of adding reinforcements in the January transfer window has afforded the Spurs manager more time.

"Yeah, it hurts. It hurts a lot. The players gave everything again," said Postecoglou. "We are going to look at a lot of things, but in terms of effort I can't ask anymore of this group, things just didn't go our way today. We created some good opportunities and unfortunately things just didn't drop for us because not because the players weren't trying and that's the main thing.

"The players are giving everything they can. That is all we can ask for as a football club and me as a manager. They are trying their hardest and that is all anyone can ask for.

"You can analyse the goals, they were disappointing goals for us to concede, but I thought we had enough chances in the game to come out on top.

"When you're in this situation, they are trying as hard as they can and sometimes that doesn't give you the clarity in decision making. All you can ask is for people to do as much as they can and from my perspective I see a group of players that are giving as much as they can.

"I know it will turn. We'll get some players back, we were short again today but in the next couple of weeks there's some really important players coming back that I know will help this group.

"We've not hit a ceiling. We've been going like this for two months. They put in an enormous performance on Thursday to make sure we're OK in Europe and they had to back it up today but there were probably at least two or three players that weren't at 100 per cent.

"I'm a football manager and I get judged on results, that is the way of the world."