Antonio Conte suggests Spurs are still ‘years’ away from the likes of Chelsea

Following Tottenham’s 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge, Antonio Conte has insisted that his side are a long way away from being able to compete with the likes of Chelsea.

Tottenham fell to their third defeat against Chelsea in a matter of weeks on Sunday and their fourth loss of the season overall to Thomas Tuchel’s men.

There was hope leading into the game that Conte’s men would give a better account of themselves than they did over the two legs of the Carabao Cup semi-final.

The away side did put up a fight in the first half as they defended resolutely to preserve a clean sheet heading into the interval.

However, Hakim Ziyech opened the scoring with a pearler of a striker just two minutes into the second half before Thiago Silva headed in a set-piece eight minutes later to put the game beyond Spurs.

Conte insisted after the game that Tottenham need ‘important’ players to compete with their London rivals.

He said (via BBC’s Simon Stone): “To be an important team, you need important players. At the moment we are far away. It takes time. Years.”

Spurs Web Opinion

There is no doubt that we are far away from competing with the likes of Chelsea, City or Liverpool over the course of an entire season. However, we certainly have the players be able to compete better with them over the course of 90 minutes.

This is a Chelsea team that were in a poor run of form and had been held to draws by the likes of Brighton (twice) and Wolves. I thought Conte was too conservative with his team selection and Tuchel clearly seems to have the Italian’s number.

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