Antonio Conte says it is ‘very difficult to see a target’ for Tottenham season after FA Cup exit

Antonio Conte has admitted it is hard for him “to see a target” for Tottenham this season following their embarrassing FA Cup exit last week.

Conte’s side crashed out of the competition with a limp defeat to Championship Middlesbrough to leave them with just 13 league games before the end of the campaign.

Spurs return to Premier League action with the visit of struggling Everton on Monday night and a win would move them to within three points of fourth-placed Arsenal.

But Conte, who is exasperated by Tottenham’s “up and down” form since the turn of the year, played down their chances of Champions League qualification and says he is now working on a game-by-game basis.

Asked about the possibility of a top-four finish, Conte said: “In this moment, my focus is to try to get the best out of every single person that works in Tottenham, not only the players but everyone in the whole environment because we have got to try and finish this difficult season in the best possible way.

“I think our fans deserve this. This moment is very difficult for me to see a target, but for sure we are targeting to play every game at the maximum to try and get the best possible result.

“For our minds the FA Cup would [have] been a possible target – for our mind’s stimulation to give us something to hope for at the end of the season, to lift the trophy. For this reason we have to be frustrated, the players and I, for what happened.”

Conte guided former club Inter Milan to a second-placed finish in his first season in charge before they won an historic Scudetto the following year but he said the situation at Spurs was “totally different” and would only become clear at the end of the campaign.

“Inter asked me to win in two years and they gave me the