Conte has golden touch but admits hard work starts now

ANTONIO CONTE last night hailed Tottenham’s ‘golden’ victory over Vitesse as his reign got off to winning start on a crazy night in north London. Conte took charge of Spurs for the first time and led his team to a chaotic victory in the Europa Conference League. Spurs raced into a 3-0 lead — with an opener from Son Heung-min (right) — only to concede two before half-time. But that wasn’t end of the drama as Cristian Romero was sent off before Vitesse accumulated two red cards of their own — Danilho Doekhi and goalkeeper Marcus Schubert towards the end of the second half. ‘Usually I don’t like these types of games, it was a crazy game which means anything can happen,’ said Conte. ‘But at the same time I think we should win and we won. We were winning 3-0 and conceded two goals that we can avoid. ‘Then, after the red card, we were in trouble. But to win was gold for these players. It will improve their confidence.’

His team face Everton in his first Premier League game in charge on Sunday and the Italian is concerned about the lack of preparation time ahead of the trip to Goodison Park. ‘I think they need to work a lot, the problem is we need to find the time to work,’ added the 52-year-old. ‘But for sure we have to improve. This was a positive evening though. But in my mind there is a lot of room for improvement. ‘It’s not easy because we had to prepare for this game and then we have only one day to prepare for Everton. ‘It is impossible to work with the players that worked tonight the day afterwards. They wasted a lot of energy. They have to rest. ‘We will work with the players who didn’t play. We needed to have a bit of patience. We need to work on many aspects tactically and physically. ‘The players will understand soon what I want. I am not afraid of the work. You can only achieve greatness with work.’