Tottenham chief explains January transfer business after Luis Diaz loss to Liverpool

Tottenham's managing director of football Fabio Paratici has defended the club's business in the January transfer window.

Spurs came under fire after failing to signing primary target Luis Diaz from Porto.

The prolific Columbian, 25, was snapped up by their Premier League rivals Liverpool on the eve of deadline day, having already scored 16 goals in all competitions this season.

Spurs did manage to get two major deals over the line before the window closed, signing Juventus pair Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur.

They also got three senior players off their books - Tanguy Ndombele (Lyon), Bryan Gil (Valencia) and Giovani Lo Celso (Villarreal) - with the trio agreeing six-month loan deals.

And Paratici - who was appointed by Tottenham last June - is pleased with the business they've conducted.

"It’s normal for us to be in the middle of these kind of rumours, and then it’s also normal when you start the race and fight to sign big players," he told the club's YouTube channel.

"We are a big club, there are 10 or 12 big clubs in the world, so it’s normal when you start to race or to fight to sign a big player.

"Of course, you have somebody that [wants] to sign this player too. And sometimes you win, as happened with [Cristian] Romero in the summer, and sometimes you can lose the race.

"I think the worse thing, and the frustrating thing, is not being in the race.

"We are here to build something bigger and we know we need a bit of time, a bit of patience, to build something. We can’t build something in one month, six months, we need time.

"But we have to be committed and, like I said before, we have to be in the race when there is somebody good enough for us.

"We want to sign players that can improve our team. We