Antonio Conte has insisted that Tottenham’s lack of consistency has to do with the mentality of the squad rather than tactical or technical flaws.
Tottenham put in an extremely lacklustre display against Middlesbrough on Tuesday, with the home side coming away with a deserved 1-0 win to progress to the quarterfinal of the FA Cup.
Conte’s men failed to impose themselves on the game and barely had a sustained spell of pressure on the opposition goal throughout the 120 minutes.
The Tottenham head coach admitted there is plenty of work to be done on improving the players’ mentality if Spurs are to become a competitive team.
He suggested that the players needed to be fully focused on the task at hand during training and matches.
When asked how to make the performances and results more stable, the Italian told Football.London: “I try every day through the work. Also sometimes to speak.
“For sure in this type of situation you need to find the right key to go into the mind of the players, because it’s not only sometimes a tactical problem or a technical problem.
MORE SPURS STORIES
“Sometimes you have to try to work and to push in other aspects, the mental aspects and try to stay focused and to work also on the training sessions, to keep focusing.
“I know that it’s very difficult because to be focused in every moment of the training, of the game is not easy. But if we want to be competitive in the future, these aspects we have to improve a lot.”
The 52-year-old said that he is fully committed to helping the squad improve and insisted that he has the patience to see the project through.
When asked what it means for him to end the season trophyless, Conte responded: “But at this moment I’m the last person, I don’t think about myself. When I speak with my players and in my team and say that we have to think about ‘us’, not ‘me’.
“For me no problem and for me there is the desire, the will, the patience to try to continue to work very hard to improve, to make this team more stable than the past, because I think this is the key that can change the situation.”
Spurs Web Opinion
Based on the manner in which Conte has completely changed his tune about being patient with the project, I suspect that the Italian has been promised major backing by the Tottenham hierarchy in the summer transfer window.
Reading between the lines of Conte’s comments, it seems like he is now focused on getting as much as he can from the squad for the next few months, with the hope that Spurs will be a lot more competitive next season after some reinforcements in the summer.
Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
