Antonio Conte discovers harsh truth about his Tottenham team as Southampton expose glaring issue

Antonio Conte and his Tottenham players will be praying that Wednesday evening's late 3-2 defeat against Southampton does not prove decisive come the final day of the season.

On course for all three points after Son Heung-min had restored their lead with 20 minutes remaining after finishing superbly off Lucas Moura's cross, Spurs surrendered their advantage in the final ten minutes as Saints delivered a hammer blow.

Equalising through Mohamed Elyounoussi's header from James Ward-Prowse's cross from the right, the Lilywhites conceded an almost identical goal two minutes later as Che Adams turned the game on its head.

What will really have frustrated Conte about the two late goals Spurs conceded is that they were totally avoidable as both were free headers.

Firstly seeing Elyounoussi ghost into the box unmarked as he ran beyond Dejan Kulusevski to get in between Emerson Royal and Davinson Sanchez to nod home, Adams then did likewise as he got between the two Tottenham defenders to give Hugo Lloris no chance with his bullet header.

Missing a key chance to close in on West Ham in fourth after losing out on all three points against Southampton, the truth is that Tottenham were second best across the park and deservedly lost.

A Spurs win would have been incredibly harsh on Ralph Hasenhuttl's team, who had ten shots on target from their 23 attempts compared to Tottenham's three from eight attempts.

What was noticeable over the course of the 90 minutes was the absence of both Eric Dier and Oliver Skipp from the team.

The former was absent once again with the thigh issue that he sustained prior to last month's international break, with the latter missing out through a groin problem.

Speaking in his pre-match press conference on