antonio conte happy
You’ve been unhappy with pre-seasons in the past, what did you change about this one to ensure you were happy with it?
First of all, the most important thing is that all the players, except Oliver Skipp, have trained and trained well. In this moment we have two players, Ivan Perisic and Doherty, they have to continue to work and reach the peak of fitness because after a long injury they are struggling a lot. We need to have patience. But today it was positive to give them a lot of time to play again for Matthew and Ivan. Bissouma is also a player who has to come into our idea of football. I’m happy for Lenglet, for Clement, because he came in with personality. We need a player to play, to play with personality, to have the quality to play football, also to attack. It was positive. It’s positive that Ben Davies has recovered. I didn’t want to take a risk today because we have another week to work and to bring him in the best physical condition so he doesn’t feel pain in his ankle. Now he feels a bit of pain. He was ready to play today but I didn’t want to risk it. Richarlison I liked a lot the way he impacted the game. We need this type of player. Richarlison to start the game or go into the game, he can have a big impact. For us it’s very important. We need him behind Sonny, also Kane and Kulusevski. He is an important player because we have a lot of games to play. For sure to finish with a loss is not good but at the same time it can help us keep our feet on the ground for the environment, for the people inside and outside the club. Then to understand we have to be humble and to continue to work. This season I think we can be competitive in every game to try to fight. You don’t know what will happen at the end of the game but we have to start the game with the hope to get three points.
How important was it getting Ivan Perisic in personally for you?
He’s an important player because he’s really good. He moves forward, good in one v ones, and then he can use both feet and he was before a winger which us why he’s good in one v one. But he has to continue to work because at this moment he’s not the Ivan Perisic I know. That is normal though, but I’m happy because he reduced the time to recover from his injury. It was the same for Matthew, for Doherty. I hope to see him like last season and now he’s working and he’s struggling. We need to have patience. We need to give time for these players to be really fit. It will be very important for us, but then we have Sessegnon, that is a guarantee, also Emerson is good. There is the new player Spence. He is a guy who has to work a lot, because to go into Tottenham it’s different in the Premier League with Tottenham but in the end I’m happy. I’m happy because we’ve finished the pre-season and we want to start the season and have important games to get three points.
