The long pause
When Antonio Conte takes a long pause before he answers a question you know he's really trying to stop himself from saying what he wants to.
It's no secret that the Italian has to decompress for a while after a game before he faces the media because his emotions are just too raw to put into words.
On nights like Sunday, you can see the Spurs head coach wrestling with just how honest he should be about the situation at the club.
There was a distinct lack of confidence among his Tottenham players on the pitch against Wolves, particularly in defence.
football.london asked whether that was something the head coach was able to fix himself or it was an issue only the players themselves could solve.
After a long pause, he responded: "The confidence and pressure is part of our job. The pressure for me, the pressure for the players. I think this type of situation is part of our job. If you remember, when I spoke about improving many aspects it wasn’t only today after two defeats in a row at home I tell you a different situation.
"I continue to tell the same things. There is a long road, a long path in front of us. Long. It's important for us not to be scared to face this path.
"For sure there are many aspects to improve. It's difficult today to speak about the game because for me in my opinion the game was good, the performance was also good.
"We created many chances against a team with the second best defence after Man City. Despite this we created many chances to score, we had the possession.
"But we are talking about a 2-0 defeat against Wolverhampton and for sure we have to improve and to live with a lack of confidence, because it can happen, it can happen. We have to be good to live with the pressure. Otherwise it will be difficult.
"But I repeat, these players are very good. The commitment is very high every day in the training sessions, and also in the game because I can't speak about a bad commitment. They pushed until the end and I’m proud of this.
"However, there are many aspects if you want to be competitive to fight for important positions you have to consider. We have a long path in front of us to follow."
2022 has not gone well so far for Conte and Spurs. After his unbeaten start in the Premier League, they have lost five of their nine matches so far this calendar year in all competitions - three against Chelsea - and travel to runaway leaders Manchester City next weekend.
That Tottenham can still somehow reach the top five and potentially four if they were to win their games in hand and Arsenal slipped up, is more a testament to just how inconsistent those in the top four race have been.
The problem for Spurs is that they are not looking likely to find any consistency themselves at the moment and winning those games in hand is looking far easier said than done.
"When you lose two games in a row at home and a previous game against Chelsea, a team that wants to fight for the Champions League is impossible," Conte told Sky.
This was another game when the desire, the aggression and the tenacity seemed to be missing.
Conte has not deviated from the same mantra. Commitment is great, but it's not enough on its own.
Spurs did enjoy more of the possession on Sunday and have 17 shots on goal, seven on target but they did not really trouble Jose Sa in the Wolves goal with their big three up front.
Lucas Moura was ineffective and resorted to his old ways of running past one or two players only to give the ball away to the third.
Son Heung-min is not himself at the moment and is yet to truly kick into gear after returning from injury. He looked to be among those lacking confidence when he got into the final third - despite scoring on Wednesday.
Harry Kane continues to look frustrated with the level of his Spurs team-mates and on Sunday was trying to do too much by himself.
There's something missing right now from Tottenham Hotspur and even one of the world's best coaches is struggling to bring it out.
Skipping a beat
It says something about the senior players at a football club when a 21-year-old academy product is instead a crucial missing piece to their jigsaw.
The numbers however do not lie. With Oliver Skipp in the starting line-up for Premier League matches this season, Spurs have won 10 times, draw once and lost just three games.
Without the England U21 international, they have won only once, drawn twice and lost five times.
Skipp brings the drive, he brings the aggression, he never shirks a challenge or limply puts a foot in when the ball is there to be won.
On top of that he reads the game, anticipates danger and quickly recycles the ball to get the attacking players on the move towards the opposition box.
Conte has not hidden his desire to get Skipp back and into his team following a groin injury that was slightly complicated by an infection during his recovery.
The Italian told football.london this week: "Honestly I hope to have him back very soon. The medical department said to me two weeks but I hope to have him available in one week or 10 days maximum. For this reason I try to push my medical department because we need Skipp to be available. We’re talking about a good and important player for Tottenham."
Conte has high hopes for Skipp and believes he can turn him into one of the top midfielders in the Premier League.
After the win against Brentford in December he said: "This player is a very young. He has really a lot of space for improvement. He played with great intensity, great passion, with heart, with soul. I think it was important because for me he doesn’t care if he’s only 21-years-old, he deserves to play.
"I think that I can improve him a lot in possession and technically, to look before the play. We’re talking about an important prospect and I'm very happy for him, but now he has to continue in this way."
He added: "I think that the present and the future depends on him. If he wants to become a top midfielder, he could become a top midfielder, but he has to continue to work.
"He has this will, this desire to become an important player for Tottenham and for the present and for the future."
Jose Mourinho previously labelled Skipp as a future Spurs captain and he was one of the few players Nuno Espirito Santo would allow himself to wax lyrical about.
Without him, Tottenham's midfield does not look settled and on Sunday once again Conte changed up his options.
This time it was Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg who for the first time since joining Spurs did not start a Premier League match when available.
Yet the midfield pairing of Harry Winks and Rodrigo Bentancur did not start its life together well.
Winks had a poor first half, looking shaky under pressure from Wolves pressing with some loose touches and at times he just watched Wolves players breezing past him without putting himself about enough.
The crowd quickly get on his back when he makes mistakes but he did improve in the second half, with some creative and clever passing, although it could be argued that he was under less pressure due to Spurs' extra man in midfield after Conte's change which in turn pushed Wolves back.
Bentancur showed more promise in his first Premier League start as he adjusts to the pace of the English game.
Those in Italy suggest he will pick up yellow cards and give the ball away in some dangerous positions as he tries to move the ball forward quickly. Both occurred on Sunday and the Uruguayan has picked up two bookings in his first three appearances.
However, he does supply more forward thrust and he plays some defence splitting passes, not least one in the first half that Son ran clear on to, only to show his lack of confidence with a cut inside and weak shot at the keeper.
Bentancur is not low on confidence and the three-time Serie A title winner is hungry to prove what he can do in football's most difficult league after his time at Juventus petered out somewhat.
Conte told football.london on Friday that the Uruguay international suits a midfield duo best rather than a three.
However, if Skipp is available, and even if he is not, there must be a temptation to switch to a 3-5-2 at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
Opposing managers are figuring out ways of crowding Spurs out too easily with an extra man in the centre of the pitch.
Tottenham must get back to winning the midfield battle rather than passively surrendering it.
Joe Rodon, another pause and the defence
Conte produced another pause when football.london asked him whether he had been tempted to use Joe Rodon in Spurs' struggling defence after previously claiming the Welshman was the back-up to Eric Dier.
"With Joe we are talking about a really good guy," he said after taking his time to think. "We are talking about a person whose commitment is very high every day.... but in this moment (pause)... yeah maybe I make a mistake to pick different players, maybe. Maybe.
"But my evaluation is to try to put on the pitch the best players at the moment. If I didn't do this then it means that maybe I did different considerations."
Conte seemed like he was going to keep on talking, saying "and...er..." but after another pause just decided that his answer was enough.
There's two ways of looking at what the Tottenham head coach did say.
One is that he was being polite in offering the possibility that he might have made a potential mistake rather than admitting that he might not rate the young centre-back. Then by saying his evaluation was to try to put his best players on the pitch he was admitting that he did not believe Rodon was one.
The other view is that he genuinely had been revaluating in the aftermath of another poor defensive display that he has been harsh on the Wales international.
Rodon has had a tough time in getting opportunities at Spurs since joining just 16 months ago as a string of under-pressure managers have looked to their more experienced players instead.
The 24-year-old was keen to get a loan move away in the recent January window, but, despite interest from Premier League clubs and some in Spain and France, no moves proved attractive enough both Spurs and the player.
Under Conte, Rodon has tried to make himself available despite some painful rib injuries.
He first cracked one rib and fractured the cartilage during an accidental collision in training, but played through the pain to get himself selected to face Morecambe in the FA Cup.
However, in that cup game after an early aerial challenge, it was later found out that he had cracked another rib on the other side, which meant some of his movement was restricted for the majority of the game.
football.london understands that some of the squad's senior players have been pushing the claims of Rodon behind the scenes in recent weeks, with his ability to play in any of the three positions in a back three, having been a left-sided centre-back at Swansea.
However, Dier's potential return from his thigh injury for the City match could close a window of opportunity that never really seemed to exist for Rodon.
Something has to change in Spurs' defence for the back three Conte has been using just does not sit naturally.
The Italian likes Davinson Sanchez and believes it is only his concentration in matches that is preventing him from becoming a top defender, yet those lapses keep occurring.
Cristian Romero is a cut above Spurs' other defenders but, at this stage, he is not a leader nor an organiser and mostly concentrates on his own front foot style of defending.
Ben Davies has been solid but made one mistake on Sunday, a poor clearance to a Wolves player in the build-up to the second goal for the visitors.
As a unit they do not gel, without a vocal organiser among them. That is where Dier does have an advantage and he also offers the ability to play the ball out of defence and link the lines.
"We conceded two goals and it's very difficult to comment [on them]. Then after 30 mins I decided to change tactically and go man-to-man and I think we did well, but when you concede a goal you also have to understand the reason," said Conte.
"If there is a tactical reason, if there are different reasons and at the moment we are struggling a bit with the confidence and the pressure.
"It is very difficult to speak about the pressure because the pressure is part of our job and I am used to living with it very well, but I know that there are different situations and we have to try and manage them much better.
"We have to improve in mental aspects. When I speak about improvement, it’s not only on the pitch but totally. I think we can improve."
Behind the backline, Hugo Lloris also had a shaky first half. First he chose to punch weakly, instead of catch, a Leander Dendoncker shot and it fell for the completely unmarked Raul Jimenez, who had all the time in the world to chest it down and volley it into the net.
How Wolves' main striker was left completely alone in the Spurs box is another huge question mark against the defence.
Then Lloris miscued a pass to Davies in his own box, which led to that poor clearance for Wolves' second goal, which in itself brought another comedy of errors with Sanchez and Bentancur deflecting the ball on to the right-hand post and all the Spurs players in the box watched on as Dendoncker reacted and rammed the ball home.
Lloris pulled off a string of good saves afterwards but he had played his part in both goals.
That brought the sad sound of ironic jeers from his own fans when the World Cup winner made a catch from a cross in the first half. The club captain was hearing that just weeks after the cheers of his new contract being signed.
That's football though and the players know how frustrated the fans are.
On the flanks, the wing-backs struggled again.
Ryan Sessegnon lasted only 28 minutes, with a pass completion success of just 54.6 per cent from his 11 passes in that time. He also struggled to get forward and give Nelson Semedo any problems during that period.
When Conte decided to take him off to switch to a 4-2-3-1 formation, Sessegnon looked crestfallen, heading off on the opposite side of the pitch to allow Dejan Kulusevski to get on quickly.
He completed a sad, dejected walk around the outside of the pitch, applauded by the Spurs fans he passed, before Conte sought him out as he neared the dugout, no doubt explaining the tactical nature of the decision.
On the other side Matt Doherty passed up yet another opportunity to show that he can offer more offensively than Emerson Royal.
The wing-backs are so key to making Conte's system work and right now it's a failing area.
The question is if the Spurs players aren't showing the quality to make the Italian's favoured system work, will he adapt to their strengths until they can be replaced or will he continue to persist in trying to make a faulty machine run smoothly.
Conte asks for patience but will he show it himself?
The Tottenham fans are growing restless.
They responded to the club's call to move away from the Y-word by loudly singing two different chants about it within the first five minutes and then chanting the word on its own as they do straight after.
Their frustrations at the game soon took their attention away from it.
There were boos at both half-time and full-time once again as another home game ended in defeat.
At the final whistle, Spurs pumped out loud music around the stadium. Cynics might suggest that was a deliberate move to drown out any angry voices from the Spurs faithful.
The complaints about chairman Daniel Levy are rarely far from the surface for some fans and some are already questioning the impact of managing director of football Fabio Paratici after six months at the club, with them seeing more misses than hits in the transfer market so far.
Paratici spent much of Sunday's game chatting the ear off his compatriot and one of his summer signings, Pierluigi Gollini. The goalkeeper appears to have become his go-to man to dish out his views during matches since Steve Hitchen's departure.
Conte wants the fans to show patience and try to get behind the team and the club.
"We have to fight and try to build something important to improve the situation but it is important to know the situation because otherwise maybe our fans could be disappointed and instead they have to try and push us and stay behind us," the Spurs boss told Sky.
"These players need to feel the right atmosphere and not pressure about a target that at this moment you can't think. This is my evaluation."
In his press conference he went on further when asked whether he was worried if there was a lack of winning mentality within the club to match his own.
"The problem is that you cannot buy the winning mentality," he said. "You transfer it day by day and it is not sure that day by day, because there are players that are more open and they understand the process quickly, other players need more time to understand this.
"Winning mentality in my opinion means when you play I am ready to kill you and to live.
"This is the difference in every duel, every second ball, every set-piece. When you show better desire than your opponent, when you understand the defeats have to hurt you a lot, not a little.
"This is not simple. When I say that we are working a lot to try and improve in many aspects, you know after when we lost against Mura then I said we had to work a lot and maybe we had to try and improve because there are a lot of situations to improve.
"In my opinion, compare the past and compare the season when this team reached the final of the Champions League, a lot of things have changed.
"Now in this moment we have to be realistic and we have to be together. Also with our fans. Our fans have to understand that maybe you need to have patience to wait to rebuild again the situation they were used to in the past.
"Now the situation has changed but not only with me, in three months and a half. It was the same with the other coaches in the past. If we have patience and we want to work. This is the situation."
He added: "We are working very hard with the players, with the players there is a great commitment but it is not enough. It is not enough. It is not enough.
"I repeat that if we want to be competitive, we have to wait and build. Step by step, step by step.
"It is important to be realistic and speak very clearly. I like to do this and this is not the first time I am telling you the same things. This is not the first time."
The problem for Tottenham fans is that they are being asked to show patience after almost three years in which the club has lurched from one bad decision to the next and they have watched their team fall down the table.
Conte, with his CV and recent success, is a man who certainly deserves their backing but there is a concern among some over just how much patience you can show for a man who often has had little himself during his career.
The 52-year-old has only signed a short-term contract at Spurs with just over a year remaining, although the club have the option to extend it.
Conte already looks ground down by the Tottenham Hotspur experience and just how much "struggling" he can take as a man used to competing for big things remains to be seen.
Spurs' home has not become the fortress it was meant to be or the one White Hart Lane became, particularly in its emotional final season.
Wembley took some time to adapt to, but Tottenham did eventually learn to win consistently there.
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is an incredible sporting arena but it is yet to become a place other teams fear coming to.
Sometimes it's been all too easy for those visitors to enjoy their day out inside one of the world's best stadiums and leave with the points.
Spurs will not enjoy success until they can make it an unpleasant place for visiting sides.
Conte needs to bring the mean edge back to Tottenham, ensuring that if the level of the performance drops, the competitive edge does not dissolve.
The north London side have often been dubbed 'too nice' but in Mauricio Pochettino's peak years, they had a physical, aggressive, almost nasty, streak in matches. They were his embodiment as a player out there on the pitch.
Conte does not take any prisoners either and as the season goes on he needs to bring that ruthless streak to his players and those who don't have it in them will have to be relegated to reduced roles.
Of all the places to visit when your team is struggling for confidence, the Etihad Stadium is not going to be high on your wish-list.
The Italian will need far more desire and aggression from his players if they are to take anything from the match, or least put in a display they can start constructing a foundation again from.
Conte has called on patience from the fans, but for them to show it they need to believe that something can be built again at Spurs.
The Tottenham faithful have had too many false dawns in recent years and they need to be convinced that this isn't one more. Conte's 'long path' cannot lead to another dead end.
