The Eagles suffered a 2-1 defeat despite largely having the better of the first-half, but a Joel Ward own-goal and a Heung-Min Son strike in the second period meant Jordan Ayew’s brilliant late effort ultimately counted for little.
The manager told Sky Sports: “I thought our first-half performance was very good. I thought we gave them a good game throughout. We were playing against a good team.
“Unfortunately, at two goals to nil down, it becomes very, very difficult. We took some chances. We put some players on the field who haven’t played much for us and had a look at them, and to be fair, even right to the end, the team was fighting.
“We scored a late goal, had lots of corner kicks and were pressing so I’m not disappointed in the team’s performance at all, not really, but I am disappointed of course in the result.
“I thought at half-time that, in the second-half, if we could have done that again all through the second-half, we’d have had a result from the game.
“I trust the team and I trust the players. I did think our structure in the first-half was very good. We made life very difficult for Tottenham and asked questions of them, so at half-time we were very satisfied.
“When that first goal goes in with all their ability to keep possession, and wanting to make some changes, that unfortunately changed things a bit, but that’s what we need to do at the moment because we are still without at least two players who I think could help us become a better team.”
Hodgson was also pleased to see improvement in his team’s display from the defeat away at Newcastle United last week.
The manager noted: “I don’t think we could have done more than we did against them because they were determined not to let us do what we wanted to do.
“We were playing against a team who were top of the league, they were two goals to nil up, and we were trying. We wanted it and we want to do the right things, but they’re not top of the league for nothing.
“They have very, very good players, they’re organised defensively and what’s more, with two goals to nil lead, it was very easy for them to take all the time in the world on the ball and we were the ones trying to chase and hurry them.
“I think today’s performance was very different to the one last week. There were a lot of very encouraging things to see in this performance and my overriding feeling at the moment is that it was unfortunate that we couldn’t build on the first-half, because of the unfortunate own-goal which put us one-nil down. “