Tottenham buckle again in familiar style

London: It has become a familiar pattern for Tottenham under Jose Mourinho this season: take the lead, retreat, invite opponents on, and eventually concede.

The same thing happened again on Wednesday, and it cost the team a place in the Premier League's top four.

Leading through a rarely seen diving header put away emphatically by Harry Kane, Tottenham couldn't hold out against a Fulham side playing the game on just two days' notice much to the chagrin of its manager.

Ivan Cavaleiro scored a header of his own in the 74th minute to earn Fulham a 1-1 draw at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, giving Mourinho that sinking feeling he is starting to know well.

After all, Tottenham has conceded late equalizers in draws against Crystal Palace and Wolverhampton over the past month. In that period, there was also the 90th-minute header scored by Roberto Firmino to earn Liverpool a 2-1 win over Spurs at Anfield.

Earlier in the season, Tottenham squandered home leads in draws against Newcastle and West Ham.

Mourinho's renowned pragmatism is well-received by supporters of his teams if it pays off. It feels like a wasted opportunity when it doesn't.

According to Opta, the Premier League's official statistics supplier, Tottenham has had only 12 second-half shots on target in its last nine league games. Mourinho's team wasted two chances, in particular, to finish off Fulham as Son Heung-min struck a shot against the post when clean through and Moussa Sissoko was denied by a last-ditch tackle after a weaving run into the area.

We have lots of opportunities to kill off matches," Mourinho said. In other cases, especially away, we are winning but then don't have that ambition to get the goal and kill the game. Tottenham would have moved into third place with a win, but dropped to sixth place because Manchester City beat Brighton 1-0 thanks to Phil Foden's individual goal in the day's other game.