Cristian Stellini explains how Tottenham can play attacking football

Tottenham Hotspur interim manager Cristian Stellini has attempted to explain how his side can play more attacking football.

Spurs have not been able to hit the heights expected of them this season and parted ways with head coach Antonio Conte at the end of March.

Conte had turned Tottenham into one of the Premier League's most effective and entertaining teams during the second half of the 2021/22 campaign, but have reverted to a more passive style this season.

They have also been wedded to a 3-4-3 system despite Conte's departure, with former assistant Stellini showing little in way of tactical evolution since taking interim charge.

But speaking ahead of Saturday's visit of Bournemouth, Stellini insisted he wants the team to play more attacking football.

"We could [finish in the top four], we have to play eight final games like eight finals. We started with Brighton and now we have eight games. We have to play attacking football. We are trying to push more to create more chances, to try to shoot more on target, to create something that can create a good atmosphere in the stadium and to get the crowd behind us," he said.

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When asked to explain how Spurs will play a more attractive brand of football, Stellini replied: "By exploiting more the space, keeping the ball more and try to find the right spaces and superiority on the pitch. To play with patience and not to rush in the game or be frantic on the ball. This is the way. It is a long time we work on this aspect. It is not only in the last aspect we worked. We want to see the players improving under this aspect.

"I don't think we are speaking about a huge change. It is the work that we work on for a long time. It is about confidence, patience during the game and the style of this team to play in the right way for the characteristics of the players."

Stellini was then asked if a formation change would be necessary to achieve these goals, to which he said: "I think we played many games in past that were really attractive like you say. For me it is important to win games in this moment and not only to think about how it is attractive our football. But we played many games like this. With this style, we can exploit, we have a good squad and good players to try and do it.

"I think we decide to use this [formation], and we create, we built a team to play in this way. So we have a squad with players that can play in this formation. We played well. We are not in a position that we can say we didn’t do a good job. We are here to fight for the fourth place. We have players, the team was built for that. We have to take care on that.

"Maybe we have to play with more patience like I said, with more confidence. I think that in the moment, we played last season, over the last 14 games, we were at the top of the league playing with this formation."

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On this edition of Oh What A Night, part of the 90min podcast network, Sean Walsh & Jude Summerfield look back on Tottenham 2-1 Brighton, Son netting his 100th Premier League goal, the Stellini vs De Zerbi clash and more!

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