ANTONIO CONTE has insisted if Tottenham are to reach a “superior level” then hat-trick hero Son Heung-min and Harry Kane must be ready to spend time on the bench this season.
Son was dropped for Saturday’s visit of Leicester but responded in stunning fashion by netting a hat-trick in a 31-minute cameo as a substitute to end his eight-game goal drought in style.
While Kane has started every fixture this season, Conte has admitted in recent weeks his star forward will also have to be rotated due to the packed schedule, which will see Spurs play 12 games in seven weeks from 1 October.
The Italian won major titles during his time at Juventus, Chelsea and Inter Milan and warned following the 6-2 thrashing of Leicester there will be no compromising on his way of working.
“My story speaks very clear. In every situation that I work, at the end I lift a trophy,” Conte explained. “It means maybe my vision, my work, my idea of football has to give credit.
“I think the club is really happy for what we are doing with the players, with the staff and for sure I don’t want compromise. I don’t accept compromise for anybody. This has to be very clear.
“I want to bring this team to think of a superior level, not to stay in the middle. Not to stay at Tottenham because, ‘there I play every game, every game, every game’. If you think like this, you are not probably going to fight for something important in my opinion.
“We have just started this path with the club. To have Richarlison up front, with Harry, Sonny, Deki (Dejan Kulusevski) and also Lucas (Moura), then there is Bryan Gil who is a good prospect and young, it means the situation gives me the possibility to have rotation.
“In the first four games Richy was on the bench, then three games with Deki on the bench, today Sonny was on the bench. When we start to play after the international break 12 games in a row, for sure I will make rotation.
“The only thing I ask of my players is to give me the possibility and don’t drop the level when we make this rotation. We always want a strong team because we want to fight for every competition.”
Spurs are level on points with Manchester City after seven Premier League matches and remain unbeaten in the division.
A gruelling fixture list after the international break will test Tottenham’s squad depth and they were without Ben Davies on Saturday after he sustained an injury to his knee, which will rule him out of Wales commitments next week.
Conte hopes for no further injuries, adding: “We are 17 points after seven games. I think it was a really good start.
“Now there is the international break. Fingers cross I hope for no more injuries because October we have 12 games in a row. Difficult games because we are talking Premier League, Champions League, Premier League, Champions League.”
Visiting Leicester suffered a sixth straight league loss to pile further pressure on Brendan Rodgers.
James Maddison offered support for his manager post-match and the Foxes boss is hopeful this break offers them the chance to reset.
Rodgers said: “Listen, the players, I love all of them. Since I’ve been here they’ve given me everything.
“It has been a real challenging summer and it is only probably in this last week I feel we have got sort of that rhythm back in our play, I think you saw that but we got punished.
“Obviously I know the scoreline doesn’t look good but from a coaching perspective, I saw a lot of good moments. We can take that forward into the next game against Nottingham Forest game and have a reset now.
“That Forest game is a big opportunity at home to get that first win and from that we have a real good run of fixtures where we can accumulate more points.”
