Mourinho refuses to blame Aurier for defeat

Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho refused to come down too hard on Serge A uri er after he gave away a needless penalty in his side's 2-0 home defeat to Leicester.

Aurier brainlessly shoved Wesley Fofana over in firsthalf injury time, with referee Craig Paw son checking the pitchside monitor before awarding the spot-kick which Jamie Vardy converted.

Leicester climbed above Spurs in the table after Toby Alder weireld's second-half own goal killed the game as Mourinho's men slumped to a second successive defeat.

Only David Luiz has conceded more Premier League penalties than Aurier since he arrived in England in 2017, and Mourinho was seen in Spurs' Amazon documentary telling the right-back he was scared of him giving away spot-kicks. Despite those preexisting concerns, Mourinho did not criticise Aurier for making the foul.

"Is it a problem? Let's focus on today," he said when asked whether Aurier's rash tackles are an issue.

"Today he made a mistake but before his mistake in minute 45 or 46 we had other players making mistakes in other areas of the pitch. I can't blame a player for a mistake.”

Spurs appeared to be Liverpool' s main challenger s for the title, but they have slipped to fifth after back-toback defeats and that now looks less likely.

Leicester look like they could be a better bet to challenge Liverpool after they moved up to second place but boss Brendan Rodgers is not getting carried away.

"The ambition is to continue improving ,” said Rodgers .“We won' t get carried away, there is a lot of development to take place in our young players. We will see.”