Tottenham Hotspur manager Antonio Conte made his frustrations very clear with his players in the dressing room after the defeat on Saturday.
Alasdair Gold was speaking on his latest YouTube channel to shed some light on what he believes the Italian put across to his players after their loss to Brighton & Hove Albion.
Are you still confident of making top four?
Yes
No
Spurs threw away the game in the dying minutes, with Leandro Trossard sealing the points for the visitors in the 90th minute.
And Gold believes Conte stressed to his players if they are unable to clinch all three points in the game, they must come away from it with a point rather than throwing away the points as they did.
“A lesson that we can learn today that there are games that if you are not able to win, you have to not lose,” Conte said after the game.
The defeat brought an end to Tottenham’s impressive run of form in recent weeks which had seen them climb into the Champions League spots.
However, with the defeat bringing the Lilywhites back down to earth, Gold claimed Conte made it clear what he expects from his side going into the final six games of the season:
“I felt afterwards, Conte clearly, after the game, must have made it very clear in that dressing room, a phrase: ‘if you can’t win, then you don’t lose’.
“Because after the game, not only did he say that, in pretty much every interview he did, including his press conference, Hugo Lloris said it in his interview and Eric Dier had said it in an interview as well. So that clearly has been the phrase that’s been used in that dressing room.”
TIF Thoughts on Gold’s comments…
It certainly seems Gold noticed a trend after the game in the interviews given to the media and the message could prove huge in the Premier League run-in.
Spurs were never in the running to clinch three points in the game on the weekend with no shots on target throughout the 90 minutes against the Seagulls.
So had they just shut up shop and ground out the single point, it would have actually increased their lead in the top four race, with Arsenal losing later on in the afternoon.
In other news: ‘Wasn’t in the match’ – Journalist slams Spurs ace who managed just 18 touches