Tottenham’s multiple award-winning boss Antonio Conte has admitted that finishing fourth in the Premier League this season would be like winning the Champions League and has shared his sentiment with his squad.
Spurs are now up in seventh place after Monday’s 5-0 thumping of Everton and are now three points adrift of Arsenal in fourth, having played one more game than the Gunners. However, despite the win, Conte refused to get carried away with his side’s chances of qualifying for the Champions League but did admit with humility that getting Spurs into the top four could be one of the biggest achievements of his career.
“Now we have 12 games to play until the end of the season,” he said. “I listen and you ask me in every press conference about the top-four race.
“I said to my players that it’s right to take responsibility about this because I think that from when I arrived to now we are stronger.
“In January two players made us more complete. I think that we can fight. We can fight for this target. It’s important to have this ambition and it’s not right to hide our ambition and we’ll see what happens.
“We’ll try to do everything and at the end we’ll see what happens. Now we have only 12 games to play, not a trophy to play for. For this reason it’s right to take the responsibility, me, myself, I have to be the first.
“You know I don’t like to speak about ambition and reaching a place in the Champions League because I like to play to win the league and win trophies, but in this situation this could be our Champions League, our Premier League title if we are able to reach fourth place.”
The following two weeks could be crucial in defining Spurs’ season as they will be coming up against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Saturday, before hosting fellow European hopefuls West Ham United the following weekend.