This was the Antonio Conte Tottenham Hotspur that the Italian wants people to see, the one he’s proud to have his name attached to. It’s been hard not to feel that the former Inter Milan and Chelsea boss has been slightly disconnecting himself with Spurs in recent weeks.
Antonio Conte said: “A good night for sure. For my players and our fans, I am sure they are delighted for this performance. A very important three points for the table. We will try to fight until the end for the best possible position in the table. A top four race for sure and we want to be involved. I think we are becoming stronger in many aspects. We have to avoid ups and downs and to be a stable team. We have to take the responsibility now. We have to fight to reach the best possible position and to fight for a place in the Champions League. For sure it won’t be easy. We need to have ambition and I think we can do this, I think we ready to do this.”
For a man who had played down the top four chase throughout his tenure, now he has decided that with 12 matches left and no trophy to play for, his players need to have something to focus on. Having players back like Rodrigo Bentancur, who brought calm to the midfield and knows exactly what Conte demands, will also strengthen the head coach’s cause. When football.london asked him a question about whether he was now seeing a Conte Spurs team out there, he delivered a long, five-minute answer which ended with a similar challenge to his players.
Antonio Conte said: “Now we have 12 games to play until the end of the season. I listen and you [the media] ask me in every press conference about the top four race. I said to my players that it’s right to take responsibility about this because I think that from when I arrived to now we are stronger. In January two players made us more complete. I think that we can fight. We can fight for this target. It’s important to have this ambition and it’s not right to hide our ambition and ok we’ll see what happens. We’ll try to do everything and at the end we’ll see what happens. Now we have only 12 games to play, not a trophy to play for. For this reason it’s right to take the responsibility, me, myself, I have to be the first. You know I don’t like to speak about ambition and reaching a place in the Champions League because I like to play to win the league and win trophies, but in this situation this could be our Champions League, our Premier League title if we are able to reach fourth place.”
Conte has tried to downplay what this Tottenham team can achieve and perhaps that lack of pressure has played its part in the inconsistent displays.
