Son Heung-min says there is no option but for the Tottenham Hotspur players to follow "winner" Antonio Conte because if they don't they know they will struggle.
Spurs took a point from their Champions League tie at Eintracht Frankfurt on Tuesday night which leaves them second in a very open Group D, with two home games to come and a trip to Marseille to end the group stage at the beginning of November. It was a better performance than in Saturday's North London Derby defeat but once again it was missing the cutting edge from the front line.
Some have questioned Conte's approach after Saturday's derby disappointment but after the draw in Germany Son said the Italian's way was a tough one but it was the path to success.
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"It's important [to listen to him]. We saw last season that nobody believed we would be here right now. Last season nobody believed we'd be in the Champions League.," he said. "The gaffer always wants more, more, more and as I player I want to follow his way, or you know what's coming. If we don't follow him then you know you struggle. We have to follow, there is no option because he's a winner and I think this is what we do - sacrifice and do the hard things."
On Conte's emotions after matches, the South Korean star added: "We're human, we're all emotional. Sometimes after the game we're all happy and sometimes we're all angry or frustrated. That's frustrated.
"The gaffer is more passionate, if we win he's like the happiest guy in the world, but if the performance is not good and he's not happy, he's the first one blaming himself and wanting to improve."
Spurs scored six against Leicester at home in their last fixture at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium but they are struggling to find the net on their travels with no goals from open play in their past four away games and Son admits it's a strange situation for a team with so much attacking quality.
"I can't really describe this feeling. To be honest [against Frankfurt] I think we should have scored two or three goals because we had good chances for Harry [Kane] and me," he said. "This is really frustrating because we know we just need half-chances but it doesn't go [in], and this has happened in a few away games.
"It's not what I want but it's always tough in the Champions League and there's never easy chances to score. We are human and there's still improvement. Obviously this moment it's really frustrating but we have to move on to better things."
Son himself marked his return to the scoresheet with an eye-catching hat-trick against Leicester but that has not started a trail of goals for him either with subsequent blanks in the matches against Arsenal and Frankfurt. The South Korea captain admitted he's constantly studying his own game after matches to see where he can improve.
"I just look at us as a team, but obviously individually I always want to do better. I've never been happy with my performance because I always want to do better things, amazing things but it doesn't always happen like that," he admitted. "I'm always watching [back] my games to see what I can do, what I can improve.
"Look, this season is still long, I'm working really hard to help the team. So it's not an issue, these two games, because we had tough games. Sometimes you have tough games and sometimes amazing games. It's all in your mind and so we need to move on even with these kind of tough games."
Despite this sticky period, Spurs do still sit third in the Premier League and second in their Champions League group and Son believes the team have to simply block out exterior noises and accept that criticism comes with raised expectations.
"Look this is outside of our group [squad] and talking is something we can't control," he explained. "As a team, as a great group, we have to stick together in these tough games, because I think these criticisms are because the expectations are higher.
"So we need to thinking that way, the positive way. We know we can do much better but there are still so many games this season. We need to do much better than we did but I'm still believing that we can."
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