Daniel Farke said Leeds United were the only side pushing for a win in the second half at Elland Road before securing three points against Tottenham Hotspur.

The Whites and their London visitors played out a relatively even first half with few real chances for either side. But after the break Leeds were dominant and created a number of good chances. Ao Tanaka sent a shot over the bar from a golden opportunity and Sean Longstaff was denied by a superb Antonín Kinský save. But Farke sent on Harry Wilson and Noah Okafor and the pair combined so that the latter could score a 79th-minute winner with his third touch.

The full-time whistle showed how much the victory meant to Farke's men, with Tarik Muharemović sprinting to the South Stand to celebrate alongside James Trafford.

"There's no replacement for this winning feeling in the dressing room, it's great to have it back," said Farke.

"Terrific performance against an in-form Tottenham side. For us it has been a difficult period, we've been missing key players in the offence in training and games, players like Anton Stach, Noah Okafor, Dominic Calvert-Lewin has not had the easiest spell with injury problems. It was important to show this unity, commitment and be tactically spot on to avoid their processes and individual quality. We reduced them to very little. We were missing a bit in the final third, the finishing pass wasn't there. But in the second half only one team was pushing."

Farke rued the chances that came and went before his side finally got what they deserved, but welcomed their persistence and defensive effort at the end to keep out Spurs' desperate attempts to level.

"We missed too many chances," he said. "Ao Tanaka had a great chance but it felt like it was coming and we were relentless. We fully deserved to go into the lead. We have to dig in of course, they can substitute quality players in and take lots of risk. We showed steel again, another clean sheet but overall a very good team performance and good that we have this winning feeling back."

At half-time Farke was forced to replace Gabriel Gudmundsson with summer signing Melvin Bard, but the replacement settled straight into the game and caught the eye with his performance. Farke insisted he had no qualms about putting Bard into the fray.

"Gabi had problems with his hamstring and it was not possible to keep going," said the boss. "I always prefer to have him available but Melvin had his best week in training since he came to us. You could feel he had momentum and I was not one moment concerned when I had to throw him in. Very competitive, very concentrated but it's no coincidence. I'm a big believer that you play like you train. I hope it's not too bad with Gabi and hope to have him back for Chelsea, but credit to Melvin he also played his part in a very good second half."