Antonio Conte asks Tottenham Hotspur to be proactive rather than reactive in post-match press conference after Southampton draw

Tottenham Hotspur were held to a 1-1 draw by a ten-man Southampton, which prompted Antonio Conte to demand that they need to be proactive rather than reactive with their play. His side would have been disappointed not to have won the game and thus maintain their momentum.

The Saints were the better team overall in the first half as they used their home stadium to the full advantage. Spurs had troubles coping with the pressing, and eventually, the hosts took the lead in the 25th minute through James Ward-Prowse. Harry Kane levelled the scoring after Son Heung-Min was brought down in the penalty area. Mohammed Salisu got his second yellow for that challenge after receiving his previous one for a foul on Emerson Royal.

Speaking in the post-match interview (h/t Tottenham Hotspur official website), Conte was adamant that Tottenham needed to take the initiative from the get-go and not let their opponents grow into the game. He added that the players needed to change their mentality in this aspect to improve even further.

“In the first half, Southampton started very well, better than us. We have to improve in this aspect, in the mentality, why we have to take a slap before we make a reaction. This is the big job that awaits, to change the mentality and to improve in many aspects, because after we conceded the goal, we started to play. Why do we have to wait, I repeat, to take a slap, before we react?”

Weakness of Spurs?

It highlights one of the areas where we need to focus on improving as it is an important aspect in modern-day football. We have to control the games better early on to have the upper hand over our opponents and make them play the way we want. We have let opposition teams set the tempo early on and that needs to change.

We would be disappointed for not getting the three points, but to an extent, we were arguably robbed of it. Even if Kane’s disallowed goal was rightfully offside, the decision to give a foul on Matt Doherty for a mistake made by Fraser Forster was baffling. Referee Anthony Taylor should not have given the foul and let VAR intervene to take a more insightful decision.

While we had genuine calls for the goal to be stood, we should not have let the game be decided by moments like that. Top teams take matches by the scruff of the neck and dictate it to be the way they want it to play out. Doing that every game is impossible, but having that in our arsenal would help us in the long term to deal with different adversities.

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Teams challenging for titles or even the top four spots would not be smart to play catch-up in games, especially against opponents way below them in the table. Conte is correct in saying that we need to raise our tempo before being ‘slapped’ by our opponents into doing so.

Conte might not take it easy in the training sessions in the next few days now and it looks like the players can use a bit of talking-to before we travel to Watford on New Year’s Day. The race for the top four is on and we cannot be complacent anymore.