Tottenham Hotspur boss Antonio Conte has admitted that he still thinks his side are just too emotional after their 3-2 home defeat to Southampton.
Conte was hoping to get Tottenham moving, especially after securing two deadline day signings in Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski.
Tottenham took a first-half lead through Jan Bednarek’s own goal, only for former Spurs youth kid Armando Broja to level it up.
Son Heung-min put Tottenham back in front, but Spurs collapsed with Mohamed Elyounoussi and Che Adams turning the game on its head.
An energetic and relentless Southampton side deserved their win, but this was a major concern for Tottenham.
Conte’s men were second best for large parts of the game and couldn’t deal with Southampton’s pressing, whilst a late collapse reignited fears that Tottenham are just too flimsy.
That isn’t a mentality you associate with Conte teams.
Conte builds winning machines, from Juventus to Chelsea to Inter Milan. A title-winner with all three sides, Conte is used to winning big trophies.
Right now, Tottenham look like they are a long, long way from a similar level, showing the work Conte still needs to do at Spurs.
This was never going to change in one transfer window, but Conte will know the scale of the task facing him in North London.
Seeing his side capitulate so badly will have really concerned Conte, and he admitted one factor is still present in the Tottenham team.
Conte told Football London that he still thinks Tottenham are ‘still too emotional’, believing this is a problem that just isn’t going away.
Conte highlighted the comeback against Leicester City contrasted with the collapse against Southampton, believing that Tottenham are just too up and down.
The Italian wants to make Tottenham more steady, but Wednesday’s result shows that this will take a while yet.
“I say this before and I continue to repeat. I think that we are improving in many aspects but then we are still too emotional,” said Conte. “Against Leicester we won 3-2 and we were losing 2-1. Today we were winning 2-1 and we lost 3-2. I think on this aspect we have to improve because if we want to grow as a team and try to be competitive, the first thing that you have to improve is stability, not to be up and down, up and down, up and down.”
“I think that this is a situation that we have to improve and also I repeat, in a team it’s important to have players with experience to manage the situation during the game. I repeat it was a pity because my players they gave 120 per cent today and the effort was maximum. I cannot say that I don’t see the right attitude or the right commitment. I saw the maximum commitment. For this reason we have to try to avoid these defeats because today I felt we could have avoided this defeat, especially when you go 2-1 up and there are 15-20 minutes to play. We have to try to manage the situation in a better way but it happened and we have to take experience from this game and try to improve,” he added.
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