‘You can buy experience’ – Conte on Tottenham’s individual defensive mistakes

At half-time against Man City last night, it seemed like a dream situation for Antonio Conte and his Tottenham players, 2-0 up away to the Premier League title holders.

However, just 15 minutes later it all came crashing down as City smashed two goals past Hugo Lloris early in the second half, only to go on and find another two without reply.

Despite Tottenham outplaying their hosts in the first 45 and showing so much attacking prowess, they were once again undone at the back with a series of defensive errors from the likes of Ivan Perisic, Eric Dier, Ben Davies, and Clement Lenglet.

When Conte was asked about those individual errors, he at first claimed you could not buy experience, before laughing and quickly correcting himself. Of course, you can buy experienced players in the transfer market, even if you can’t buy experience for existing players.

When asked about the individual errors, he said (Football London): “Yeah but you know we are really disappointed because many times, you have try to justify the goals that we are conceding.

“For sure this is a period we are not so lucky because we are making many, many mistakes, many mistakes, but football is this.

“Sometimes you have a positive performance. Sometimes you are in situations that are not so positive but we have to continue to work and believe in ourselves. As I said in the past, this type of game with more experience you never, never lose.

“You don’t buy experience, (laughs) well you can buy experience. You can buy it, but you know very well that we have to buy experience step by step, year by year.

“For this reason, when I speak and I tell you we have just started the process to try to become competitive, it means that we are also working under this aspect because a team with experience never concedes four goals.”

Spurs Web Opinion:

Conte is right. If Tottenham had the level of experienced defenders they should really have, they would never have lost that game 4-2. A set of experienced and top-class defenders does not concede two in 45 minutes, let alone four. It is just a question of whether Levy and co will fix that.

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