Tue 15 March 2022, 18:00
Tottenham HotspurAntonio Conte has spoken after the last couple of games about how he’s seeing improvement among the players – now he wants us to translate that into more wins, starting at Brighton & Hove Albion on Wednesday night (7.30pm UK).
Our valiant efforts went unrewarded at Manchester United on Saturday as we succumbed to a 3-2 defeat, although a similarly committed display at home to Everton last week yielded a terrific 5-0 victory.
As we prepare for our trip to the Amex Stadium, Head Coach Antonio insists that good performances must lead to points on the board on a regular basis as we approach the business end of the Premier League season.
“I think for sure we are having good performances but at the same time, not always we match a good performance with a good result,” he told Spurs TV after training on Tuesday.
“We have to try to match these two things because it’s okay to score more goals or to play good football and to create many chances but at the same time we need to try to find a good balance and to consider what we are considering in this period. Only this way can we obtain a good result at the end of the game. I repeat, the performance has to be good, to try to play good football but at the same time I think the result has to become very important.”
Hosts Brighton have lost their last five games in a row, but Antonio is nevertheless wary of the strengths of Graham Potter’s men, especially with our recent FA Cup victory against them in mind.
“My expectation is to have a difficult game,” he said. “We have seen Brighton, also in the game against them in the FA Cup, we won the game but they played a really good game, they created many chances and they created problems. It’s a really good team, they try to play (good) football, they’re well organised, they’re strong physically, they are having a good season apart from the last period where they’ve lost some games in a row and we need to pay great attention because as you know very well, in England there are no easy games, especially against this type of team.”
Our 3-1 victory over the Seagulls last month represented the Spurs debuts of Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur following their January arrivals from Juventus, with both players having gone on to make an impact during their first few weeks at the Club. Antonio says he’s pleased with their input so far.
“I think it was two good signings for us, young players with talent, players with a lot of space for improvement,” he said. “They are playing well, they are into our idea of football, I think that their performances are very good and they have to continue this way, to try to improve, in the same way that my expectation is to see improvement of all my team.”
