A bristling Antonio Conte offered a robust defence of his Tottenham management following Saturday’s defeat to Arsenal, insisting he is "not stupid" and can "teach football to many people".
Speaking in Germany the day after Manchester United’s 6-3 defeat to rivals Manchester City, Conte dismissed suggestions his tactics were negative, pointedly saying he had never conceded "six, seven or eight" as a manager.
He also defended his selection decisions after being told supporters were wondering if summer signing Djed Spence, 21, would be given an opportunity in the wake of Emerson Royal’s sending off at the weekend.
The Brazilian will be suspended for the League matches against Brighton, Everton and United being shown a straight card as Spurs slumped to a 3-1 defeat at the home of their rivals, their first domestic reverse of the campaign.
Emerson has started all but one of Spurs’ 10 games this season, the 6-2 win over Leicester when Ivan Perisic switched flanks, with Conte having largely ignored his other two right wing-backs, £15million signing Spence and Matt Doherty.
"The fans have to be fans," Conte said ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League game at Eintracht Frankfurt.
"The fans is the fans, I understand they can think everything but I see every day what happens during the training session.
"I try to do the best for the team. If they trust me, then they trust me, but the choices are mine. If I didn’t decide to pick one player it’s maybe because he’s not ready.
"We are talking about a young player with a good prospect [Spence], but I repeat I try to pick the best team.
“Also Doherty last season played every game. Now I’m not seeing him in the right way to start the game. I’m not stupid, I don’t want to lose. I try to put the best team, to pick the best team.
“If they trust me it’s ok, if they don’t trust me then I’m the coach and I need to take the best decision for Tottenham."
Arsenal had 65 percent of possession and 22 shots to Spurs’ seven at the Emirates, and Conte was also asked if he was frustrated at the perception that his side are negative.
"No, I think that for the characteristics of the players we have to defend situations, and if we were able to exploit the situation, especially last passes, we would have been able to score many goals against Arsenal," the Italian said.
"Instead we made really bad mistakes for the last passes because we had the opportunity to go one-to-one but every team has to think and understand the way to play different games.
"Then I repeat last season we won 3-0 and in the same way then when you lose you have to explain and when you win the opponent has to explain, but for me it’s important to try to have a plan, to put my players in the best possible situation to exploit their characteristics.
"Otherwise it can happen that you can concede six, seven or eight goals, in England that happens a lot of times. In my career never, never happened and I don’t like to play open and concede a lot of space and conceded six, seven or eight goals.
"In England happened a lot of times. I won in England and then I won in my past and I think I can teach football to many people."
Conte will be without Dejan Kulusevski at Deutsche Bank Park but the forward could return from a hamstring strain against Brighton this weekend or in the reverse fixture against the Bundesliga side, a week on Wednesday.
Conte also revealed Lucas Moura would be out "for a long time" with tendon inflammation but said he trusted 21-year-old forward Bryan Gil, who is yet to make an appearance this season.
