“I Said We Didn’t Want To Be Heroic Losers”

Brendan Rodgers told his side at half time on Saturday that they were not to be heroic losers

The Swans went into that interval a goal down despite appearing to be the better side in the first 45 minutes against Spurs.

And Rodgers team talk concentrated on keeping the pressure up and ensuring that they did not earn their tag of heroic losers – a tag they were given by some after narrow defeats earlier in the season to both Arsenal and Manchester United.

Rodgers said “It’s as good a performance as we have had, particularly against a real top side

“If you look at it as a whole, with Spurs arriving here in the form they’re in and with the quality they have, it was a terrific performance and I’m very proud of the players.

“I said to them at half-time that I didn’t want us to be the heroic losers. We’d played so well in the first half but gone in 1-0 down, and people could have ended up talking about our tippy-tappy football after we’d lost the game.

“We could have felt sorry for ourselves after going behind. Maybe a lot of teams after playing so well for 45 minutes only to finish up losing 1-0 would have been overrun by Tottenham and ended up losing 3-0 or 4-0.

“But we showed our resolve and our resistance as well as our quality, and I thought a point was the least we deserved against a top, top side.

“That will give us confidence going into the second half of the season.

“I think the performance against a top side like Spurs gives us the confidence to think that we can stay in this league,” Rodgers said.

“Our objective all along has been to stay at this level. It’s a brilliant league.

“That was such a great game for us, for the supporters, for you journalists — to see us, the minnows, competing against world-class players.

“To perform as we did, to be the better side, just shows how this club has grown.”