Dejan Kulusevski has expressed his displeasure with Tottenham’s habit of starting games slowly.
Spurs fell behind 2-0 to Brentford on Boxing Day, thanks to goals from Vitaly Janelt and Ivan Toney.
Harry Kane’s fine header cut the deficit in half, and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg equalised.
But Spurs could not score a winner and had to settle for a point after conceding the first goal in nine consecutive games.
The Swede was not impressed by his team’s first half performance. He told the club’s official website (via Mirror):
“The first half was very bad, we didn’t feel ready, we lost every second ball and didn’t do anything with the ball,”
“So we were very disappointed with the game. It’s not OK.
“You feel as a player as soon as we got the first goal we thought we were going to win. But the big problem is not the second half, it’s the first half.
“We have to improve. It’s not OK to start games like this. If we want to be a big team we have to start playing from the first minute.
“If I knew how to change it I would tell everybody but I don’t know. We have to figure it out as a team.
“We didn’t expect this and we work so hard to not play like this. When you work hard you want to see the results.
“But we have another game against Aston Villa soon and we will be prepared.”
Their next game is against Unai Emery’s Aston Villa who were beaten by Liverpool 3-1 on Boxing Day.
However, it will by no means be an easy fixture for Conte as a resurgent Villa under Emery has already beaten the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea.
Spurs will be hoping to improve their first half performances and end the streak of conceding the first goal.