Ahead of Monday night’s trip to take on Fulham at Craven Cottage in the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur head coach Antonio Conte provided an update on the state of his squad.
Speaking to the club’s official website, Conte stated that he was not anticipating any fresh injury concerns among his players, stating that the biggest factor impacting his selections for tomorrow would be fatigue from Thursday’s 4-2 defeat to Man City:
“It’s difficult to answer because we only played [on Thursday], I think no, but sometimes something can happen after a day [following a game] and the medical department need time to make an evaluation, but I hope not. We finished with all the players, a bit tired, especially the players recovering from injury like Rodrigo [Bentancur], Deki Kulusevski, but it’s only fatigue.”
Indeed, both Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski are instrumental to Spurs’ hopes of picking up their recent form of six defeats in ten league matches, and protecting them for the upcoming run of fixtures is crucial. Bentancur played over 75 minutes on Thursday in his first match since December’s World Cup with Uruguay, so it is likely that he will be feeling the effects of the City match.
As for Kulusevski, after a three-week lay-off just before the new year, the Swedish winger has started consecutive matches in the past week, lasting the entire 90 against City, so he too will need to be monitored for signs of fatigue. This becomes all the more important when recalling that, even before that lay-off, he had a hamstring problem that took the best part of 6 weeks to shake off, and Spurs cannot afford to lose him for that timespan again between now and the end of the season.
Reflecting on what his side must put right going into Monday’s encounter, Conte told The Independent that his side must regain the defensive solidity that helped them secure Champions League qualification last season, adding:
“To learn again to suffer in the moments that we have to suffer together and the whole team because the whole team attacks and the whole team defends.
Conte then adopted a positive tone, stating that his side are on the right trajectory. He also cited a defeat he experienced with Inter Milan back in 2019 as a similar experience to Spurs’ defeat at the Etihad, in which the Italians also surrendered a 2-0 half-time lead to lose, prompting his side to go an impressive run of 1 defeat in 3 months after learning from their mistakes. He hopes that his current side can go on a similar run after such a chastening loss:
“I think we are in the right direction from my experience.
“In my previous experience for example, it happened in my first season at Inter Milan that in the Champions League we played against Borussia Dortmund. After the first half we were winning 2-0 and we lost 3-2.
“We were at the start of the process and I think this (Man City) game reminds me of the start at Inter Milan because in the second half we conceded three goals and it was really difficult, but then you have to go through this situation to improve and to go to another level.”
Conte then reiterated his desire to see more defensive solidity from his team, stating that his side have been defending like a team hovering around the bottom of the table rather than the top-end of it:
“To concede 21 goals in the last 10 games, this is usually a team that fight in the relegation zone,” Conte said (as per BBC Sport).
“Last season, I don’t remember how many clean sheets with Hugo Lloris, but in every game this season we concede at least two goals.
“This is our medium, our average – like a team that is fighting in the relegation zone.”
Despite that, Conte underlined his satisfaction with his team’s progress in other departments from last season, namely, their attacking output and capacity to press and create chances:
“In other aspects I think we have to come back like last season and to be a bit more solid, a bit more focused, a bit more nasty.
“We improved in many aspects because this season we are scoring many goals, we create many chances, our organisation to press is much better than last season.”
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