Tottenham manager Antonio Conte fires warning ahead of North London derby

Tottenham manager Antonio Conte warned that his side need to be better and ready for the north London derby against Arsenal, after crashing out of the Carabao Cup at the hands of Chelsea.

Spurs were completely outplayed by Chelsea in the two legs, with the Blues running out 3-0 winners.

The defeat begins an important period in the Tottenham’s season, with games against Arsenal, Leicester and Chelsea again in the league coming up within the next 12 days.

The north London side are still alive in their quest to finish in the top-four, and will get another chance to try and win a trophy after advancing to the fourth round of the FA Cup.

The Carabao Cup semi-finals were by far the most subdued manager Antonio Conte has looked on the touchline in a long while, with the highly-rated manager standing helpless against Chelsea’s imposing dominance.

He admits his side will have to close the gap between themselves and the top Premier league sides, but was confident they would be ready for when their closest rivals Arsenal come visiting on Sunday.

The Tottenham manager said: “We have to know this and we have a really tough game against Arsenal coming up, and then in two days we have a game against Leicester and Chelsea again and we have to be ready and give our best.”

The Tottenham boss who enjoyed two successful years at Stamford Bridge, helping the Blues to league and FA Cup victory admitted his former side deserved the ticket to Wembley for their overall display.

He added: “I think in the two legs Chelsea were better and deserved to go through, we paid the price for our performance in the first leg.

“Here we struggled a bit in the first half, but the second half was really good and we gave it our all and it’s not normal that you will see a game that VAR reverses two penalty calls.”

Chelsea again utilised a back four system with the impressive Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen flanked to the left by the versatile Malang Sarr and and the evergreen César Azpilicueta to the right.

Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel hinted he would look into utilising the back four often as it makes his side quite unpredictable.

The German manager added: “So well done to the team, full credit to them that they are open to some adjustments that give us more options and maybe makes us a bit more unpredictable.

“Of course, today we used it again for the build-up but defended in a back five. It’s good to have these options but it needs to fit into what we expect and which spaces we expect to find. We will decide from match to match”