Ange Postecoglou rallied around his players after Tottenham produced a flat display in a 1-1 draw at home to Fulham to lose more ground in the Premier League.

Spurs were eager to keep within touching distance of London rivals Arsenal and Chelsea, but failed to build on Brennan Johnson’s 54th-minute opener.

Johnson volleyed home from Timo Werner’s cross for his 10th goal this season to boost a Tottenham team which was hit by the morning withdrawal of an ill Dominic Solanke, while chief creator Dejan Kulusevski was given a rare breather with a place on the bench.

However, Fulham claimed a deserved leveller when substitute Tom Cairney rifled beyond Fraser Forster after 67 minutes and although Cairney was later given a red card following a VAR review for a poor tackle on the back of Kulusevski’s calf, it finished all square.

Tottenham have dropped to seventh a week on from a superb 4-0 victory at Manchester City, but Postecoglou vowed to protect his players amid a growing list of absentees.

“We’re going to have to protect our players because as I said, we’re within our numbers and Deki has played every minute. I’ve rarely subbed him off,” Postecoglou said.

“So, we’ve just got to be careful with him and with a few others, but at the moment we just don’t have too many options, so we’ve just got to try and manage them the best we can and obviously that affects performance.

“It’s too easy to say, well, let’s just play like we did against Man City every game.

“And it somehow again seems with this club that whatever it is that we do well is then used as a millstone to bring us down at every other opportunity.

“I guess from my perspective, as I keep saying, it’s really important that we don’t react to any of that and just stay focused.

“I just sometimes feel like, especially the players we’ve got at the moment, they’re just working really hard for this football club to try and progress to where we want to be.

“We’re in good shape, we’re still in good shape. We’re still in a decent position in the league. We’re still in the Carabao Cup, we’re in a decent position in Europe, so it’s about us maintaining our focus on continuing to develop.”

Fulham boss Marco Silva was proud of his players after they bounced back from a surprise 4-1 loss at home to Wolves last weekend, but tight-lipped on the absence of Andreas Pereira.

Pereira had started every Premier League match for Fulham this season but was conspicuous by his absence days after he gave an eye-catching interview with Brazilian media, which the midfielder claimed was “inaccurate” during a post on his Instagram page on Sunday.

Silva insisted that was not the reason for Pereira being left out at Tottenham.

“I didn’t read the interview,” Silva said.

“I know what you are talking about and the thing I want to tell you is Andreas will be back stronger to help the team like he has been helping in every single moment.

“I don’t make decisions regarding interviews or newspapers, or social media.

“Decisions from myself are never going to be related to newspapers or something.

“He was not ready for the game.

“It was a technical decision by myself.”