Ange Postecoglou: 'Fourth place is not the goal for Tottenham Hotspur'

Thanks to last weekend's 4-0 crushing of 10-man Aston Villa, Spurs cut the gap to the Lions down to just two points with a game in hand, leaving them in control of their top-four destiny.

Had Tottenham come up trumps at Craven Cottage on Saturday evening, they would have risen into the Champions League places for at least a matter of hours before Unai Emery's side returned to action against West Ham United on Sunday.

However, the Lilywhites produced an extremely lacklustre performance at the home of their London rivals, where in-form Cottagers striker Rodrigo Muniz netted twice either side of Sasa Lukic's first goal for Fulham in a three-goal beating.

Sunday's loss marked the first time that Tottenham had failed to score in a Premier League game under Postecoglou, bringing an end to their remarkable 39-match scoring streak in the top flight of English football.

As a result, Villa are now back in charge of the race for fourth, but speaking to reporters in his post-match press conference — as quoted by football.london — Postecoglou reiterated that he is not aiming for fourth place and would be happy with missing out on Champions League football if he saw significant development within his squad.

«I don't see fourth as the prize. This club has finished fourth before. It's finished second before. You can throw all types of things at it, it's reached the Champions League final, you can throw all sorts of things but this club has achieved things. So fourth is not my end goal,» Postecoglou said.

«I don't want to finish fourth if we haven't grown as a