Winks, Lloris, Wanyama and Dele react to win over Chelsea

If Harry Winks needed a sign to show that he has his manager’s trust, then being thrust into the action at a crucial time in one of our biggest games of the season on Wednesday night would surely have done the trick!

The 20-year-old midfielder, who replaced the excellent Mousa Dembele with 16 minutes remaining in our 2-0 victory against league leaders Chelsea, just at a stage when the Blues were starting to exert some pressure, was delighted to play a part as he has done so many times of late.

Afterwards, he joined Hugo Lloris, Victor Wanyama and two-goal hero Dele Alli in speaking about an “excellent” display at White Hart Lane…

Harry Winks

On his chance against Chelsea
“For me personally, it’s brilliant. It shows that the manager trusts me which is obviously what I want. I’m loving it at the moment! To be as involved as I am now is something I could only have dreamed of at the beginning of the season and for it now to be a reality is brilliant but I want it to keep happening and the only way that’s going to happen is if I keep my head down and keep working hard.”

On the team’s performance
“I think we were excellent from start to finish. We were in control, we never really looked like we were going to lose but obviously against a team like Chelsea you’ve got to respect them in the sense that they’re good players and they’re a good team. Beating the top-of-the-table team shows how good we are and I think it shows that we’re capable big things.”

On coping with the pre-match hype
“I think we treated it like we do every game, not reading into it too much. We just go out there and we play what’s in front of us. You can’t get too carried away with the opposition, it’s more a case of just focusing on yourselves and then that will get you where it gets you.”

Hugo Lloris

Thoughts on the game
“It’s a great feeling, we had a great team performance tonight and now we just need to carry on. It’s only one game with three points but to beat the leaders of the league as we did tonight, it’s a great feeling. There is nothing to say – we were much better in all the aspects of the game and we just need to carry on now.”

On dealing with the pressure on the game
“We showed tonight that we’ve got more maturity and that’s good for our future. We showed more maturity than in the past and that’s the process that we’re in. We used to repeat that we needed to go step-by-step and I think we are in a good way. We need to keep working hard and as I used to repeat, we need to keep the same mentality every day at the training ground and carry on because we have the talent. When we play at this level all together, it will be difficult to beat us.”

Is this our biggest result of the season?
“I don’t know. The most important thing is to feel that at home, for the opponent it’s difficult to get something, especially against the top teams. We’ve beaten Manchester City, now we’ve beaten Chelsea and in both games I think we did well but the season is still young, we need to keep our feet on the floor and think about our recovery now.”

Victor Wanyama

On controlling the midfield
“When I have Mousa Dembele alongside me I‘m not worried! To be honest, everyone put on a good performance, we played well as a team and I’m really happy. It’s an important win, everybody is happy in the dressing room and we just want to continue from here. We want to show that we are a strong team and we can fight for everything.”

On two-goal Dele Alli
“He’s a top player and he’s scoring goals for us so we are really happy to have him. He has a good technique and also he scores goals – tonight he had two headers. It’s not easy for him because all the attention is on him but he can deal with that for sure.”

Was this the best performance of the season?
“I will say yes. We were playing against a tough team like Chelsea, we needed everyone to be at their best and tonight we showed that we can do well. Our fans obviously wanted nothing but the win and for us it was about just trying to focus on the game. Everyone can be proud that we gave our best performance and we are happy with the three points.”

Dele Alli

On scoring with headers
“I’ve worked on it a little and we do finishing all the time in training. It’s something I want to add to my game and today it felt like I could only use my head, not my feet! I didn’t feel like I was in the game too much until I scored that first goal. It was a great performance, we showed great fight and the fans were unbelievable.”