Tottenham Hotspur manager Andre Villas-Boas has challenged his side to go on another unbeaten run in order to secure Champions League football next season.

Villas-Boas saw his side’s 12-match undefeated spell come to an end on Sunday with a 3-2 loss to Liverpool – a result which prevented Spurs from increasing their lead over London rivals Chelsea and Arsenal, as well as giving yesterday’s opponents an outside chance of qualifying for Europe’s elite competition via the Premier League.

“A couple of mistakes at the end cost us the game but we can’t be too negative on what we have done,” the former Porto coach told Sky Sports.

“Hopefully this is a reminder for us but we’ll try and go on another 12-game unbeaten run.”

Behind

Tottenham had gone behind to a first-half strike from Luis Suarez before a Jan Vertonghen double either side of half-time put the North London club ahead.

But a Kyle Walker back pass put Stewart Downing in to level the match, before a clumsy challenge in the penalty area from Benoit Assou-Ekotto on Suarez about 10 minutes from full-time gave the Reds an opportunity to take three points, with Steven Gerrard converting the subsequent spot-kick.

However, Villas-Boas rued a missed opportunity from Gylfi Sigurdsson, who failed to convert a Gareth Bale cross to make it 3-1, rather than the mistakes made by his full-backs.

Chance

“The chance for Sigurdsson was a big, big chance. But we did ever so well to come into the game, played well and managed to create some good opportunities. But we couldn’t control the game in the manner that we should have.

“The boys did well apart from a couple of mistakes that we committed. But that was a good performance. We are confident we can put our strengths back together and go on another run.

“We’ve suffered set-backs before. But we’ve jumped out of them and I think that it’s a wonderful opportunity for us to put ourselves back on track.”