Premier League

Conte shares joke he cracked with Son after Tottenham tactic pays ultimate dividends

Conte praises Tottenham

Antonio Conte extolled the virtues of rotation and promised more of the same for his Tottenham squad after they thrashed Leicester.

Tottenham recovered from a goal down to beat bottom club Leicester 6-2, with Heung-min Son scoring a hat-trick from the bench.

The South Korean was dropped out of the starting line-up for an attack of Harry Kane, Richarlison and Dejan Kuluseveski, but issued a response of sorts with a half-hour treble to secure all three points.

Conte praised the character of Son and any player who can accept they will not play every game.

“I think that it is important to understand well that when you play a lot of games in a row, even when you’re not psychically tired, you can be mentally tired, and you’re not able to play every game,” he told BBC Sport.

“But I was a player and I know you want to play massive games – Champions League and Premier League are massive games – but they are starting to understand the rotation.

“To have a player of Son’s level on the bench means that in one moment I can change the game and also with the rotation at the back today and when Bissouma came on he gave us a lot of strength and energy and I think this is the right path for us.

“There are 12 games in a row after the international break and all the players will be involved.

“If the player is intelligent and a good player and person, it depends on this. Every decision that I am going to take is for the best of the team, always. They have to understand this.

“Sometimes to start on the bench and to come in is important because in the next game you might be in the starting XI but at the same time you are recharged of the mental and physical energy.

“I am really happy for Sonny today. You know what I think of the player. I said to him if you’re going to score three goals in 30 minutes ‘maybe we can repeat this experiment’, but I was joking.

“I’m lucky, I have a really good group of players, that are really good people. We have to start thinking in a different way if we are going to make the next step.

“When I decided to bring Bissouma in and play with three midfielders and move Sonny nearer to Kane to exploit the spaces it was really good because it gave us more balance and we exploited the ability of Kane and Son.”

Spurs went into this game after suffering a surprising 2-0 defeat in midweek at the hands of Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League group stages.


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