antonio conte happy
That was a disappointing night for you. What went wrong?
We have to be honest; United deserved to win and deserved to get three points. They started the game very well and created chances to score. In our side, we didn’t start the game, and it was really difficult also because we made a lot of mistakes, simple. For sure not a good game for us, but I have to be honest, and first of all, especially with my players, this was not the first time for us. Despite the table being good but every time we played a high-level game, we struggled. We struggled against Chelsea because we drew after 92 minutes, but Chelsea dominated the game, and with Arsenal, we lost, and today against United, we lost. For sure, when the level is high, we are going to struggle. This means we have to continue to work to try to improve, to work on the pitch and to work outside the pitch, and I think for sure because sometimes I listen that we are title contenders and I think we need time, in only 10 or 11 months, you cannot pass from ninth place to become the title contenders a year after, especially when you finish 20 points less than the monsters in England. We don’t forget last season, United failed the season. Otherwise, United has to stay for the story always in the Champions League. On our side, I repeat, we need to be disappointed because you can lose, you can lose this type of game, but at the same time, we have to show much more because I think we can do much better than today.
There seems to be a fear factor when Spurs play these big clubs. They seemed scared tonight. Why is that?
You know that in this type of game I think you need to arrive and don’t make big mistakes and you need to arrive with great concentration and with great focus ready. You need to arrive with a war inside of you, a sporting war. You need to arrive in this way with the war inside of you, ready to fight a war, and you have to know that at the end of the game, you die or your opponent dies. I think today, from the start not much under this aspect. We can improve, we need to continue to work, and for sure, it is right with the club also to analyse very well why when we are going to play this type of game where the level is very high, we are struggling. I repeat, we can work a lot on the pitch, but we need to continue to work in many aspects.
You made your substitutions late in the match tonight despite the game going against you. Why was that?
The substitutions today with Richarlison and Kulusevski out with injuries were really difficult to try to change the game also because Lucas Moura, you know very well, is recovering from an injury with his tendon. We are trying to keep him in balance, and for this reason, we are also going during the training sessions to bring him in the best physical condition but not to push him a lot because he took risks like two weeks ago to stop himself again. The other solution to the bench today was we played with three midfielders because we had only the two strikers, and then you know this type of game, we have many young players that this game is difficult for all players and for the young players much more difficult.
