‘Your opponents have to feel’ – Conte on what Spurs failed to do against Middlesbrough

Antonio Conte rued the golden chance that Tottenham missed to book their place in the FA Cup quarter-final, insisting that his side had the chances to kill the game against Middlesbrough.

It was a drab match at times at the Riverside Stadium on Tuesday, with neither side managing to impose themselves on the game.

Boro restricted the away side to few chances and looked threatening from set-pieces. The home side got the winner through Josh Coburn in the second half of extra time to seal a dramatic win.

Conte stated that the Championship club deserved to progress to the next round but inisisted his side had the opportunities to win.

The 52-year-old admitted his disappointment at the lack of killer instinct shown by his players yesterday evening.

The Spurs boss told Football.London: “I feel that we lost a good chance to go through to the next round and to play the quarter-final in an important competition like the FA Cup. I think this. There is for sure disappointment for the final result.

“I think this type of game, especially when you play away and against a team who have played in the Premiership, you have to know the difficulty and for this reason you have to try to kill in a sporting way the opponent quickly.

“I think we have had the chances to score but we didn’t take it and then you give confidence to your opponent, then you risk. In the end, Middlesbrough won the game and they deserve to go to the next round. Great compliment to them, the manager and the players because I think they played very well.”

The Italian reiterated that Chris Wilder’s side grew in confidence the longer the score stayed at 0-0, insisting that his players did not put the home side under enough pressure.

He added: “I think that we should kill the game before. I repeat, when you play this type of game, from the start you have to kill the game, you have to kill your opponent.

“Your opponent has to feel that tonight it will be a bad night. Instead, we kept Middlesbrough alive and after time then for sure, they take confidence and then they created chances to score.”

Spurs Web Opinion

Conte’s tactics have to come under scrutiny here as it appeared as if Chris Wilder did a number on him. Spurs did not look like breaking Boro down and I was surprised that it took Conte so long to make changes. The Italian could have been more adventurous, given the gulf in quality between the two sides.

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