FOOTBALL: Antonio Conte and Tottenham out of Premier League title contention

Tot­ten­ham man­ag­er Anto­nio Con­te has ruled his club out of con­tention for the Pre­mier League title after los­ing to Man­ches­ter United.

Spurs beat Unit­ed 2–0 at Old Traf­ford on Wednes­day with goals from Fred and Bruno Fernandes.

Con­te has admit­ted that North Lon­don’s play­ers are “strug­gling” in top-lev­el Pre­mier League games, and this sea­son’s results speak for themselves.

Tot­ten­ham are yet to beat a top-four team after draw­ing 2–2 with Chelsea in August and los­ing 3–1 to rivals Arse­nal ear­li­er this month.

As a result, the Ital­ian man­ag­er believes his team will not chal­lenge for the Pre­mier League title.

The for­mer Chelsea boss insists Spurs have improved a lot since tak­ing over in Novem­ber but still “needs time”.

“Every time we play at a high lev­el, we strug­gle,” Con­te said.

“We strug­gled against Chelsea and Chelsea dom­i­nat­ed the game.

“We lost against Arse­nal, and we lost against Unit­ed today (Wednes­day).

“Some­times I hear that we (Tot­ten­ham) are in the title race, but I think we need time.

“You can’t go from No. 9 to next year’s title con­tender in just 10 or 11 months.”

Tot­ten­ham now face a tough Pre­mier League match at home to New­cas­tle on Sunday.