Antonio Conte insists Spurs 'must be humble' & understand they aren't on Chelsea's level

Antonio Conte reiterated that Spurs have plenty of areas to improve on as a club in the wake of their 2-0 defeat to Chelsea on Wednesday evening.

Tottenham were comfortably beaten in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final and are fortunate to still be in the tie heading into next week's return fixture.

Conte insisted prior to the trip to Stamford Bridge that Chelsea are in a better position to win, and he echoed these sentiments in an interview with Sky Sports post-game.

"t was a difficult game from the start. I think Chelsea showed to be much better than us," Conte began.

"The first half I think we struggled a lot from the start, but we know we are talking about one of the best teams in Europe and the world. They won the Champions League. If you compare the two teams, I think there is no comparison. We are talking about a team that is ready to win. They have an important path in [recent] years and I think today we have seen the difference between the two teams."

Conte insisted that Spurs' problems go beyond the need of transfer market reinforcements, adding: "This is not a problem with the transfer market or new players. There's a lot of jobs to do.

"I think it's very difficult to understand which path you have to take to improve because there's a lot of situations to improve. We need time and patience. Everyone has to have patience because, I repeat, I think that Tottenham in the last years the level has dropped a lot.

"We have to be humble to understand that at the moment the situation, our situation. We have to work to improve the level of our players and then we'll see. But it's not as simple as going into the transfer market. It's January, it wont be easy.

"The results in the league have been good, we're in the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup. I think to reach the semi-finals is good, now we have the second leg and we'll see.

"I'm always very honest with my players. Today their team was much better than ours. We have to stop and clap the performance of Chelsea.

"I like to tell the truth. With a good lie you don't go anywhere. They showed to be a really good team, much better than us. We have to try to change the situation slowly because it's impossible to do in one transfer window. There's a lot of jobs to do and we need time and, I repeat, we need patience. I need to also have patience."