Soccer:Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas has held a meeting with his defenders in a bid to stop the late goals that have blighted their season, centre-back William Gallas has revealed.

Spurs have conceded 10 goals in the final 15 minutes of matches this campaign, which is a Barclays Premier League high along with bottom side Reading.

That inability to keep things tight until the final whistle has cost them — so much so that if matches had ended at 80 minutes they would be top of the Premier League. “We’ve had a meeting with him (Villas-Boas) because we’ve been conceding late goals and we have to be a little bit more focused, a bit stronger,” Gallas said.

“Sometimes maybe we are panicking and we’ve let goals in. So we’ve been working very hard and we’ve had some meetings to look at the video to see what is good and bad, and against Swansea it was good to keep a clean sheet.

“In this period, we have a lot of games and some players are tired; they have already played more than 20 games this season, which is a lot. It’s very intense. If we want to stay in the top four, we have to get all the players ready for the matches over Christmas and New Year, because we are going to be playing four games in 11 days.”

Stoke kick off the festive period with their visit to White Hart Lane this weekend, before Spurs head to Aston Villa on Boxing Day. “Stoke are a strong side and it will be difficult but we’ve got the quality,”

Gallas said.

“We can play football and we’re playing at home, so we don’t have any excuses to lose the game. Then we play Villa, who are on fire at the moment after winning 3-1 at Liverpool in their last game, and at the moment they are confident.

“They have Christian Benteke in attack, who has shown this season what a good player he is. At the moment, we are in the top four and they are trying to survive in the Premier League, so it will be a good game.”