How can Antonio Conte bring Spurs some stability and success?

You’d be hard pressed to find a more Jekyll and Hyde football team than Tottenham at present. One game they’re beating defending champions Manchester City, the next they’re losing to relegation-threatened Burnley. Their thumping 4-0 win at Leeds on Saturday was followed up by an abject display and early FA Cup exit at the hands of Championship club Middlesbrough on Tuesday night. No wonder Antonio Conte looks so dejected on the sidelines.

“We have to try to avoid the up and down, up and down, and the only way to improve the situation is to work and learn about the defeat,” said Conte after his team had been knocked out of the FA Cup at the Riverside. Spurs’ season suddenly looks a lot smaller. Having already left the Europa Conference League and League Cup, their only target between now and May is to leapfrog Arsenal, West Ham and Manchester United, and finish fourth. If Spurs win their two games in hand, they will overtake Manchester United, but West Ham pose a threat and, more pertinently, Arsenal are three points above Spurs with a game in hand.

If recent form is anything to go by, this rollercoaster Spurs team will fall short in their pursuit of a Champions League place. They have only won three games in a row once this season – in August – and, even though they have shown the ability to bounce back from defeats, their next collapse never seems far away. Fans would welcome some stability with open arms.

The upside of their cup defeats is that Spurs will only be playing once a week for the remainder of the season, which will give the players some rest and give Conte time to do essential work on the training ground. The Chelsea team that Conte led to the Premier League title in the 2016-17 season benefitted from not