Tottenham Hotspur boss Antonio Conte says his side have nine cup finals left as they try to earn Champions League qualification.
The Spurs held on tight in the race for the top four with a 3-1 win over West Ham, which came thanks to Son Heung-min’s tension in a Kurt Zouma own goal.
That moved them three points behind Arsenal, who have a game in hand but must visit their North London rivals in a game that has not yet been rescheduled.
After distancing himself from the side of the race for so long, Conte says the top-four qualifier is now the only goal that goes into the final run-in after the international break.
“The only way to put pressure on Arsenal is to get three points and win,” said Conte. “There are nine games to go and for us every match has to be a final.
“At the moment they have a good advantage, especially since they have been working with the same coach for many years and they have a lot of transfer market with the same coach, maybe at the moment they are more ready than we are.
“But in five months we’ve done a fantastic job with these players and we’ve reduced the gap with a lot of teams in England.
“Now in our dressing room there is only one goal in our head. I want this to happen because it’s right, if you want to improve the mentality it’s right to start under pressure.
Son Heung-min celebrates Tottenham’s third goal (Nick Potts / PA)
(PA Wire)
“For this reason, I want to achieve this goal, the race for fourth place. We know the difficulty of achieving this goal. Tottenham must have the ambition to play the best competition.
“In England it’s not easy, at the moment there are four teams that are very, very top but if one of those four teams has a fight then we have to try to stay there.
“We know it is Arsenal who benefit from the table and they show great stability and there is West Ham and (Manchester) United. We want to try to fight and to have that ambition is important to ask all the players, especially the important ones. Players because they are able to take responsibility for displaying this message.
West Ham’s own top-four challenge suffered a final blow as they are now six points behind Arsenal after playing two more games.
They got back into the game through Said Benrahma, but could not get anything out of it.
Boss David Moyes said: “I’m a little annoyed that I was asked, but I’m also very happy because it tells me that we’re seen as a side that was seen for the top four.
If someone had said that to me, I would have laughed. We were challenging but if you had said that at the start of the season, none of you would have said yes.
Declan Rice appears disappointed after defeat (Nick Potts / PA)
(PA Wire)
“It should be said how well West Ham did to stay in the race until the latter part of the season and maybe for the first time they dropped out of the race for the top four.
“Because in truth we were in that bracket, but you would never see West Ham as a top-four team.”
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