Conte: Tottenham lucky to qualify for the Champions League last season
FT Desk
- 6 Aug 2022 18:10 BST
- 3 min read
Tottenham boss Antonio Conte admitted that he was surprised his team managed Champions League qualification last season, while positively comparing his current Spurs squad with that of 2021-22.
The north Londoners started the new campaign in style on Saturday, thrashing Southampton 4-1 to fly to the top of the Premier League table on the first weekend.
Ryan Sessegnon, Eric Dier and Dejan Kulusevski were all on the scoresheet for Spurs, who also benefited from an own goal scored by Saints defender Mohammed Salisu.
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Conte was delighted to see his team start on the right foot, while also affirming that he is far more pleased with the squad he has now than when he took over last year.
“It was a good performance for the final result because we got three points but especially because we deserved to win," the Italian told Sky Sports.
"We created many chances and I like the way we had the possession and the way he pressed very high and the way we tried to win the ball again when we lost possession. There were a lot of situations that we working with on the team.
"The message was very clear that we’ve signed new players to improve our squad because our squad was really poor last season and the Champions League spot was a big achievement.
"Our first goal was to improve the squad, not just players physically but also mentally. We wanted the right players for my philosophy and today I preferred to use players from last season because they are reliable than new players because we’ve only spent two weeks with some of those players because of injuries and Covid.
Conte slams 'really poor' season
Tottenham may have clinched Champions League qualification last term but Conte was far from content with the season as a whole, particularly in the amount of time lost to injury.
"We’ve used common sense to pick the players that have the right characteristics to improve our squad. We have to work to improve and we have an ambition to make ourselves better than yesterday," he added.
“Being happy or not happy was not the problem. It was finding a solution to playing four competitions - to do this you need a squad of 20-22 players and honestly last season was really poor in the medical aspect.
"We have improved that aspect. The club always pays attention - they have shown common sense, not only to spend money, but to get players with certain characteristics to improve the squad.”
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