Liverpool midfielder Adam Lallana has admitted that Tuesday's victory over Tottenham Hotspur was a "massive" result in the race for the top four.

The England international came off the bench to provide fellow substitute Mario Balotelli with a late winning goal in Liverpool's 3-2 triumph at Anfield.

The three points take the Reds to within one point of sixth-placed Spurs and only a further two behind the final Champions League qualifying place.

"It was a massive win," Lallana told the club's official website. "I think you could tell by the reaction at the final whistle how big a result and three points it was. It puts us in a good position now to carry on and to push for the remaining games of the season and hopefully climb up into the top-four positions.

"It does enormous things for your confidence. Tottenham are a different team to the one that we played on the third day of the season. I watched the game against Arsenal and they definitely deserved to win that.

"They are playing with high pressure and it was an end-to-end game tonight. For the neutral it was probably great to watch and fortunately for us, we came up in the last 15 minutes with good character and got the goal. Having the right mentality is massive, especially when you've got all these games and you play for a big club like Liverpool."

Goals from Lazar Markovic and Steven Gerrard were twice cancelled out by Harry Kane and Mousa Dembele on Merseyside before Balotelli's first Premier League goal for Liverpool saw them over the line.