Conte Says Tottenham Lack Stability Ahead Of AC Milan Clash

Tottenham boss Antonio Conte believes that his side lacks the 'stability' needed to win games as a result of playing under pressure this season.

Spurs had an impressive win over second-placed Manchester City in the Premier League and then followed it up by being thrashed 4-1 at Leicester at the weekend.

Against the backdrop of an inconsistent run in the English top flight, their next challenge sees them travel to Milan in the Champions league last-16 first-leg tie today.

"If you want to win or achieve some targets and have a good position in the Champions League or in England in the Premier League you have to be stable," the Italian, who had his gallbladder removed a fortnight ago, said.

"And this stability is lacking this year. I always talk about it with my players.

"It is very difficult to keep concentration, it is very difficult to stay focused all of the time."

The Italian went further to say that playing 'under pressure' has notoriously prevented his team from performing while making a comparison between the Serie A and Premier League.

"It is not an easy task being so focused," he continued. "We are working on that, playing under pressure all of the time is good for some players and bad for others.

"Sometimes players feel motivated, other times they feel so much under pressure that they can't perform.

"Maybe for a period they have a good performance and then they collapse all of a sudden if they feel too much pressure. We are working on this, we want to make our players more resilient."

"I think that the pressure is different between Italy and England.

"In Italy, you speak about football from Monday and you finish on Sunday.

"You speak only football and then you have a lot of TV that speaks football and putting a lot of pressure.

"You are born in this way and you grow in this way, with this pressure, and you are used to living with this type of situation.

"In England, I think that there is an atmosphere that brings to enjoy football without a lot of pressure, because football is a sport and in Italy sometimes football is not only a sport, it is a war between the teams and the fans."