Everton boss Roberto Martinez could not believe his side left White Hart Lane without anything to show for their efforts.
The Toffees were luckless in their 1-0 defeat to Tottenham in north London on Sunday, which came via Emmanuel Adebayor's 65tgh-minute goal, and the Spanish tactician could not work out how they did not at least secure a point after dominating the first half.
"I think we started the game really, really well," the Everton boss said.
"My concern before the game was being able to come to White Hart Lane and be ourselves, control the game and impose ourselves on the opposition and we did that.
"It is fair to say at times in football you are better to be lucky than good and today we played the good role, not the lucky one.
"But I thought from our point of view the only criticism about the first-half performance is that you need to hit the back of the net with the chances we had.
"I thought (Spurs keeper Hugo) Lloris was outstanding in two actions, but then we had three very, very good opportunities that on another day we would have scored that important first goal.
"In the second half, without reaching our real highs, I thought we restricted Spurs to very little.
"If you were to tell me Spurs would have one shot on target before the game, I would have taken that.
"Looking at the performance, it is disappointing because we didn't get the result but if we can take this performance into the next 13 games we're going to get a lot of points. You hope football is not going to be that harsh on us again."
The defeat saw Everton drop to sixth place with Tottenham overtaking them into fifth.
