Villas-Boas held meeting over Tottenham's poor defensive record, reveals Gallas

The centre-back acknowledges that the team has lost focus in the closing stages of games, which has cost Spurs points in their quest for Champions League football

Tottenham captain William Gallas has revealed that manager Andre Villas-Boas held meetings with the squad in an attempt to stem the amount of late goals conceded by the team.

Spurs would be top of the Premier League if all matches ended after 80 minutes, but instead 10 conceded within the final 10 minutes of games sees the north London side in fourth place - 13 points behind leaders Manchester United.

"We’ve had a meeting with him because we’ve been conceding late goals and we have to be a little bit more focused, a bit more strong," Gallas told talkSPORT.

"Sometimes maybe we are panicking and we’ve let goals in. We've been working very hard and we’ve had some meetings to look at the video to see what is good and bad, and against Swansea it was good to keep a clean sheet.

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"In this period, we have a lot of games and some players are tired – they have already played more than 20 games this season, which is a lot. It’s very intense."

Tottenham are currently level on points with third-placed Chelsea, having played one game more, and face Stoke City, Aston Villa, Sunderland and Reading within 11 days during an intense festive schedule.

 

Gallas believes the squad has enough quality to claim a top-four finish come the end of the season, but has highlighted the upcoming four fixtures as key to giving Spurs a platform to push on from in the New Year.

"If we want to stay in the top four, we have to get all the players ready for the matches over Christmas and New Year, because we are going to be playing four games in 11 days."