‘It’s more difficult if you play to win’

a team that in the past has reached the qualification to stay in the league.

“You have to avoid the bottom three places, and then you are with 10 other teams. If you have a good base and in the previous season played well, you can count on that base. You have to fight only to avoid that.”

Conte, who is set to leave Chelsea at the end of a season spent mostly at loggerheads with his board over transfer policy, is set to miss out on the top four having crashed out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage.

“It is difficult if you have to play to win, because only one team wins,” he added. “If the others don’t win, people are the first to speak about a failed season. If you don’t win the FA Cup, the league, the Carabao Cup, it is a failure season. So it is more difficult to play for these targets.

“It is more difficult when you have to go into the transfer market to win something.” Asked if he would like to swap jobs with Dyche, who has been a target for clubs like Everton, West Ham and West Brom, Conte said: “I have in my career fought to avoid the relegation zone. I didn’t start with Juventus, I started with Arezzo, at the bottom.”

Conte will make changes with Sunday’s Wembley game in mind. Eden Hazard is set to be rested, with Ross Barkley, who has played only 131 minutes since joining from Everton for £15million at the start of the year, expected to figure. Brazilian wing-back Emerson Palmieri will also start. Conte’s team could narrow the gap to fourthplaced Spurs to five points with four games left, but having fielded a phone call from his wife Elisabetta midpress conference he revealed his pessimism.

“If I see the table right now they have eight points more than us. I would rather be in their position,” he said.

“We are talking about a really good team. We have to try our best but we know that in front of us is a team that it is difficult to see dropping points.”