Harry Kane has described former Tottenham boss Antonio Conte as a "great man" and says the players know they needed to be better in the Italian's final game in charge against Southampton.
Conte went to war with his squad after Spurs shipped two late goals to draw 3-3 with rock-bottom Saints on March 18, describing them as "selfish" and unprofessional and saying they did not like playing "under pressure".
Eight days later, he left Spurs by mutual consent midway through the international break and was replaced by his assistant Cristian Stellini, who oversaw the 1-1 draw with Everton and Saturday's 2-1 win over Brighton.
Several Spurs players were unimpressed by Conte's comments but Kane put them down to "emotion" and says he wishes the head coach well in his next role.
"Obviously I wish Antonio all the best," Kane said after scoring the winner against the Seagulls. "I had a great relationship with him and it was just unfortunate that for one reason or another it didn't quite work.
"I wish him luck in his next adventure and in the meantime we'll continue to fight with Cristian, Ryan [Mason, acting assistant head coach] and the staff and try and achieve what we set out to.
"I'm not going to get into [what Conte said]. It was an emotional moment after we should have won the game and to concede two goals in the way we did, we were all disappointed.
"He's a great man, his emotions come out at times and that's who he is and he owns that. Us players we talk amongst ourselves [about the need] to keep fighting and keep improving. We know that Southampton game, we know the Everton game last week we need to do better in those moments when we're leading. Overall, all we can do is keep trying to fight and that's what we'll do."
After conceding another 90th-minute equaliser against Everton, Spurs managed an important win over Brighton, although the Seagulls have since received an apology from the PGMOL after they were denied a penalty when Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg caught Karou Mitoma at 1-1.
The visitors also had two goals ruled out for handball by the VAR, either side of Lewis Dunk cancelling out Heung-min Son's 100th Premier League goal, and were made to pay by Kane’s rifled finish.
"Those points always feel a little bit better when you grind them out," Kane said. "Brighton are a really good team, they play some good football and they had their fair share of chances and so did we.
"In that second half it was just going to be the moment who was going to take their chance and we did that. After we had to show some grit, some good defending and that's what we've needed to get better at over the last few games. A really important win for us, for the fans and everyone because we have Bournemouth next week and then we go into a really tough week against teams around us in the league.
"There has been a lot of noise around us this season and we know especially in all competitions we probably haven't been as good as we want to be," Kane added.
"The bottom line is we're still in a position to get top four and it's important for the club. We know we need to improve, we know there are areas where we need to get better at. For this season now until the end of the season all we can do is fight with what we have. We've got a few injuries that hopefully are coming back soon.
"That's what we have to do. We can't think about the past, about the future, it's about doing what we can now and that's what we'll try to do now."
Kane was criticised for going down clutching his face after been struck by Abdoulaye Doucoure, who was shown a straight red card, at Goodison Park, with pundits Jamie Carragher and Danny Murphy both describing his reaction as "embarrassing".
Asked if he had been affected by the criticism, Kane said: "I'm good. I've not heard anyone say it was not a red card. At the end of the day that's football, that's the way it goes and people have their opinions. My focus was on trying to help the team in this game and that's what I did."
