Tottenham Hotspur boss Mauricio Pochettino admitted his side “must improve” defensively and praised Harry Kane for his first Premier League hat-trick against Leicester City.

Spurs beat the midlands side 4-3 following three goals from Kane and an own goal but had let a two-goal lead slip and allowed Leicester to score late on to set up a nervous finish.

He said: “We conceded two goals after 2-0, then at 4-2 conceded again. Maybe it is part of the process as a young team but we need to improve defensively a lot and our defence game.

“It is good to take a positive result in the end, it was a little bit of worry at the end but I think as a whole it is a collective problem and this is where we need to improve in the next few games.”

Kane became the league’s top scorer with 19 goals and tapped in a simple rebound for his first of the afternoon before a heavily deflect effort and then a contentious penalty gave him the match ball.

Praising the English forward who received his first international call-up this week, Pochettino said: “I think he was fantastic, it was a fantastic game and performance and his first hat-trick of the premier league, I cannot speak higher about him.

“Harry is part of Tottenham and I am happy for him, we worked hard today but he is a very important player.”

Leicester manager Nigel Pearson described Mike Dean as “one of the most arrogant men I have ever met” as he fumed over the second-half penalty decision which saw a coming together of Danny Rose and David Nugent.

However, Pochettino said he could not see the incident and understood why Pearson was angry.

He said: “Yes I understand it is normal that he is angry with this decision but I will have to analyse on the television but from my position I could not see the incident.”

Spurs Captain Hugo Lloris suffered an early injury following a collision with Kyle Walker and had to be stretchered off after two minutes.

On his injury, the Spurs manager said: “He is in the hospital, we wait on the doctor who goes to the hospital. We hope nothing major, a cut on the tendon on his knee.

“We hope it’s not a big issue but we need to wait.”