Antonio Conte reveals pivotal difference between Tottenham and Man Utd – ‘you can’t buy it’

Antonio Conte has spoken about the integral difference between Tottenham and Manchester United following his team’s 3-2 defeat at Old Trafford.

Tottenham went behind in the 12th minute when the returning Cristiano Ronaldo sent a long range effort into the top corner. They drew level through Harry Kane’s penalty in the 35th minute, only for Ronaldo to restore United’s lead soon afterwards.

Spurs were given a chance to steal all three points when Harry Maguire sent a Sergio Reguilon cross into his own net.

But Ronaldo once again saved the Red Devils with a powerful header which Spurs could not come back from (our Player Ratings are available here).

During a post-match interview with Sky Sports (via BBC Sport), Conte explained how United’s superior ‘experience’ helped them to win.

“It’s difficult to explain this loss,” Conte said. “I think we didn’t deserve to lose, but at the same time we need to understand how we can improve.

“We had a good game, but we have to show more experience to manage certain situations. There are many parts in a game and sometimes you need to understand when to push, to go strong, to increase the intensity or when to be calm and not hurry. In that aspect, we have a lot of space for improvement. On the pitch we’ve had a great improvement.

‘You can’t buy experience’, says Antonio conte

“You can’t buy experience. You also improve your experience after this type of game. We have many young players in the team and hopefully after this game, they have the possibility to learn.

“We were at 1-1, then after one or two minutes they scored the second goal. We’re conceding a lot from set pieces in this period. We know we need to improve if we want to reach the level we need to be competitive for the top places.”

Livramento to Tottenham with 2 players in exchange

Tino Livramento linked to Tottenham this summer with 2 Spurs players to go to Southampton in return

On Portugal international Ronaldo, Conte said: “We’re talking about a player who not only tonight showed he is a top, top player.

“Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are the two best players in the world in this era. When you play against this type of player, they’re decisive. Without Cristiano Ronaldo, for United it wouldn’t have been a good night.”

Defeat is ‘painful’ – Hugo Lloris

During a post-match interview with Sky Sports, Hugo Lloris said: “I think we had a good team performance, even if we can do better with the goals we conceded. We know at this level it’s all about details. Cristiano Ronaldo also helped a lot today to get United the result.

“It’s painful because we feel we deserve better. But in football you always get what you deserve and we now need to focus on next week.

“I think [Ronaldo] was at his best, very aggressive in the box. It’s difficult to control him, but when you concede set pieces you need to look for that. The second goal is from a cross and we could have defended it a bit better. For the first goal, when you give him a little bit of space he can do what he did.

“We saw a lot of positive things from us, which is very frustrating. We knew this game was really important for the top-four race, but we won’t give up and we’ll continue to try to get better.

“If you talk about the result, obviously it’s negative. We need to analyse and try again to improve certain aspects of our game. Now the game is done and we can only manage the games ahead of us.”

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