Premier League, Conte awaits answers from the Spurs match against Chelsea

From our correspondent Davide Chinellato

August 12
– LONDON

Those three defeats in two weeks against Chelsea in last year’s games he still remembers well. Antonio Conte often used them as a reference point for his Tottenham, with a team that was in front and on which to bet. One against which the Spurs will play a very important London derby on Sunday to understand if the gap that existed last year has really closed with the transfer market and hard work. “I don’t know if it’s closed, I know that since then we have grown and improved compared to last season” he says in the Tottenham training center, in the press conference that presents the match scheduled at Stamford Bridge on Sunday at 5.30pm Italian time.

The challenge

–

Tottenham comes from 4-1 over Southampton which confirmed the optimism around the Spurs. Chelsea won 1-0 at Everton, showing they still have something to fix. “We have grown but Chelsea have also made the transfer market – explains Conte -: they are one of the best teams both in England and in Europe, two years ago they won the Champions League and last year the Club World Cup”. The Italian coach is surprised when he is reminded that since 1992 the Spurs have only once beaten Stamford Bridge: “It’s history and that doesn’t lie. When I arrived at Tottenham I said I wanted to try and write a good story for the club – says Conte -. I knew it was going to be difficult, but I think we have started to move on the right path. The match with Chelsea will be difficult, but it will allow us to understand how much we have improved. And after the game we will have to make the right evaluation without being influenced by the result, which sometimes depends on luck. We will have to evaluate how we played, what we managed to do and understand what we have grown up on ”.

Improvements

–

Against the team that led to the Premier League victory (the last success before the City-Liverpool duopoly) and the FA Cup in two seasons, Conte not only expects to understand how much his Tottenham has grown since November, when the has taken in hand, but also how much the optimism that surrounds the team and that the coach struggles to embrace is justified. “In November we were in trouble, now I feel a lot of optimism but it hasn’t been that long since then – he warns -. We worked 7 months last year and one now: I think there is only one way to improve, and that is to work. sure i am positively surprised by the change we have made in such a short period, but now comes the hardest part: improving fast is something that can happen, but when you have to level up further it becomes more difficult. You have to keep working, not making mistakes on the transfer market with the players you take and I think this is not the time for Tottenham to make them. ”

New

–

Conte started the season with a starting 11 with no new ones. But for the challenge with Chelsea he recovers Richarlison, an investment of 70 million euros who was disqualified for the first day and adds offensive options to a team that has dominated Southampton without Harry Kane and Son (40 goals in two last year, as proudly recalls Conte) hit the mark. “We are talking about players who are vital for us – says the coach of his stars in attack -. We need their goals, but we also need to find alternatives. The way we attack offers them to us and it is positive because a team that aims for the top must have different solutions. But to win you also need defensive solidity. And have balance “. This is why Conte anxiously awaits the challenge with Chelsea: not for a comparison with his past, but to understand if the future with the Spurs can be as successful as his interlude with the Blues.