Dominant Tottenham hard done by – Pochettino

Mauricio Pochettino was left to rue Tottenham’s misfortune but took plenty of encouragement from a 1-0 defeat at Manchester United in the first game of the Premier League season.

Kyle Walker’s first-half own goal ensured the London club returned to the capital with no reward from a contest which they started positively, but were unable to deny Sergio Romero a clean sheet on his United debut.

Christian Eriksen put a lob on the roof of the net and twice forced late saves from Romero as a new-look United side made an unconvincing start to their campaign.

Tottenham head coach Pochettino felt hard done by, but took positives from his side’s display.

He said: “I’m frustrated and disappointed, but very happy with the performance. I think the first 20 minutes we dominated the game, we created chances and you can see that after our mistake we conceded the goal.

“In the second half we played the same way and dominated the game. Manchester United, at Old Trafford, only shot once on target. This is good for us, we created more chances and I think we deserved more than to lose 1-0.

“I’m not surprised because we always try to dominate games, this is our style, our philosophy.”

Walker poked the ball into his own net when Wayne Rooney was about to shoot after the United captain had been picked out by Ashley Young, a mistake which proved to be costly.

Pochettino added: “I think we played very well at a very high level but still made some mistakes. When you have Rooney and Young in front of you, you give one chance and they can score.

“Sometimes in football you need to be lucky and I think today was difficult for us, because we created chances and were unlucky not to score.”