Conte focuses on ‘positives’ of Leeds performance

After Tottenham’s topsy-turvy 4-3 victory over Leeds United yesterday afternoon at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Antonio Conte stressed the positives he took from the match, while stating that this was not the type of game he enjoys.

“I think this type of game made many, many, many people very happy because if you’re in the stadium to watch a game like this, 4-3, I think attractive football. You want to see this type of game every time because it’s fun, but you know that if I have to see the positive aspect for sure my players showed me in this period great character,” Conte told football.london.

This great character Conte has spoken of has seen Spurs pick up 13 points from losing positions in the Premier League and 7 in the Champions League, more than any other side in either competition. Conte continued to praise this desire from his team to fight adversity and never give up:

“Maybe in a lot of games we were losing and then we came back. For this reason, I think the positive things are that we showed great character, great desire and great will not to give up and to believe, to believe in the win. I try every day to transfer this concept that we have to start the game and then until the end we need to fight and see what happened. Never give up, this is our mantra. This is the positive side.”

Stepping away from the positives, Conte went on to voice his concerns about the defensive side of the players’ performance, saying that if we went to go to the next level, there can be no room for conceding three goals in any given match, irrespective of the result:

“Negative side, to concede three goals is never good. A team that wants to be competitive, to concede three goals is never positive. For this reason, if you want to reach a good result you need to find stability.”

Conte continued by highlighting the potential reasons behind the lack of ‘stability’ in our recent displays, citing the concentrated fixture schedule as a potential mitigating factor for our lack of defensive cohesion in recent games:

“In this last period we never showed stability. I can think that the last period was really tough for everybody, for all the clubs, to play 13 games in 43 days was really tough, because it was impossible to work on the [training] pitch on the tactical aspect.

“One day to recover and then the next day to prepare the game. For sure when you don’t work on that tactical aspect you are going to lose something, especially defensively we lost, we lost a lot I think.”

Despite these concerns, Conte ultimately stated his satisfaction at where his team lies after the first half of the season – within the top four and with knockout Champions League football to come in the new year:

“But there is the positive aspect that we finished this period after a big effort in the next round Champions League, we finished first in our group, and then to stay in the top four in the Premier League is always good news, especially for us.

“It means that the effort was really big and at the same time I have to be really pleased with the commitment and behaviour of my players and honestly I have to consider everything and for this reason I think that we did a really good job in the first half of the season.”