Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou stressed that there were "plenty of positives" from his side to take from their gut-wrenching 2-1 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League.
The Lilywhites were forced into a quartet of changes for the showdown with Gary O'Neil's side, having lost all of James Maddison, Micky van de Ven, Destiny Udogie and Cristian Romero during Monday's 4-1 loss to Chelsea.
Nevertheless, Spurs exploded out of the blocks at Molineux, where Brennan Johnson propelled the visitors into the lead with his opening Tottenham goal within three minutes of kickoff, tapping home from Pedro Porro's cross.
Tottenham's attacking threat eluded them for the remainder of the match, although a combination of Wolves' wastefulness and the diligent defending of Eric Dier and Ben Davies saw Spurs cling onto their slender lead heading into the dying embers.
However, Wolves finally found a killer instinct in the 90th minute, as Pablo Sarabia beat Guglielmo Vicario at his near post with an exquisite volley, before Mario Lemina completed an astonishing turnaround seven minutes into injury time.
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Tottenham would have risen to top spot above Manchester City with maximum points at Molineux, but with Arsenal overcoming Burnley on Saturday afternoon, the Lilywhites have dropped to third place owing to their back-to-back defeats.
Liverpool could also overtake Postecoglou's side if they get the better of Brentford on Sunday, but the Australian was still able to reflect on a few pleasing aspects of his side's performance with an injury and suspension-hit team.
When asked if there were any positives in his post-game press conference, Postecoglou added: "I've already said the character and the commitment. I don't dismiss that," as quoted by football.london.
"There's a massive effort to go out against a strong opponent here at home. The guys are playing their first games of the year, you're changing three out of a back four so it's fairly disruptive, especially when guys haven't played at all.
"There's a lot of positives to take from it, they'll be better for the experience, they'll be stronger, so plenty of positives. [We're] disappointed obviously, particularly after it happened so late, but it's part of the pain of football and when things happen in those circumstances you've just got to take it."
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Prior to Wolves' injury-time turnaround, the out-of-favour Dier and makeshift centre-back Davies came up with a number of crucial interventions to keep the hosts at bay, and Postecoglou could not fault either man's "endeavour" over the course of 90 minutes.
"Particularly those two guys coming in [Dier and Davies], I thought their commitment, their endeavour to play our way was there for the whole game. They held out in the end," Postecoglou added.
"I think you could see they were feeling towards the end but they didn't let their performance levels drop. For the most part, Wolves didn't have many really big chances.
"I think Vic had one or two saves to make but obviously at the end there, I think the first goal was a really good goal and we probably ran out of steam in the last few minutes. Wolves, particularly with the crowd behind them, were able to lift themselves."
Tottenham's first game back after the international break sees Aston Villa travel to North London on November 26, one week before the Lilywhites meet champions Manchester City at the Etihad.
Ben Knapton
