Antonio Conte claims Tottenham can win Champions League this season

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Antonio Conte has called on his players to be “dreamers” if they want to end their 15-year spell without a trophy. The Tottenham manager said this week his side were “time, patience and at least two transfer markets” away from competing on a level playing field with the Premier League’s top clubs.

But he does not discount a shock title success or indeed picking up one of the other trophies that have been missing from the club’s trophy cabinet for so long – even the Champions League. “My players are capable of being competitive enough to win something – even Europe,” Conte said.

“But you know very well and are not stupid. You understand the situation. For sure, we have to be dreamers and to work a lot to be something special. To create something around us and have a great season.

“We need our minds, when we go to win, to ask ourselves for much more, much more, much more. This is the only way to push ourselves, create the right atmosphere and become a winner and get that into our mind.”

On a more pragmatic scale, Conte intends to measure success by how much they can close the gap on the teams above Spurs this season. On Tuesday Tottenham made the loan signing of Cristian Romero a permanent transfer as they continue to build their squad in line with their rivals.

But all of the current squad can contribute to building the “project” by taking a winning mentality into every game they play – starting at West Ham tonight. “In front of us are two top teams who have been working with the same coach for 10 years and have continued to invest much more money than us,” he said.

“We want to do that work to reduce that gap and in our heart, in our mind, in our soul, we want to be competitive in every game and get three points. Then you know very well that this period could be very important because when you go to play every three days.

“If you are a top club with an important squad you are ready for these situations. Now we have to understand if we are on the right path to do the same. We have maybe six more games in 20 days and it is an important test for us.”

Spurs’ testing run sees them face West Ham first this midweek before taking on Fulham on Saturday. They kick off their Champions League campaign at home to Marseille in their first group stage match next Wednesday.

Their first biggest test of the season comes at the Etihad against champions Manchester City on September 10 before they face Sporting Lisbon in Portugal three days later. They round off their hectic schedule by welcoming Leicester to North London on September 17.

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