Furious Antonio Conte "starting to understand" Spurs' level after dismal defeat

Antonio Conte admitted he is "starting to understand" the situation at Tottenham following the club's embarrassing Europa Conference League defeat at Slovenian side Mura.

Amadej Marosa's stoppage-time goal after Harry Kane had earlier cancelled out Tomi Horvat's shock opener meant that Spurs were humbled and fell to one of the worst results in their history.

Ryan Sessegnon had been sent-off in the first half for the visitors but the North London side should have had more than enough to see off a side who had lost all four previous group games and current lie mid-table in the Slovenian top flight.

Conte did not hold back in his post-match press conference where he admitted that the quality of the team was "not so high" at the moment and underlined the volume of work that was required.

The Italian replaced Nuno Espirito Santo in the Spurs hotseat after the Portuguese was sacked after less than three months of the season.

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Conte explained to reporters after the match: "After three weeks I am starting to understand the situation.

"It is not simple.

"At this moment the level at Tottenham is not so high.

"I am happy to stay here but we have to work a lot to improve the quality of the squad.

"We are Tottenham but there is an important gap with the top teams but I am not scared."

Conte then pleaded with the club's fans to retain patience with him and the team, insisting that it was a great challenge and would require time to turn around.

The former Juventus, Chelsea and Inter boss added: "I accepted this job and I knew it would be a great challenge for my career, but at the moment my pride doesn't matter.

"My goal and the staff's must be to improve Tottenham and bring them back to a good level, but it will take time and the fans have to be patient.

"First I want to thank the fans and then after the game I don't like talking to the team.

"We'll talk about it tomorrow when we analyse it."

Conte continued: "After this result, my mood is not good.

"This evening is a bad defeat, we complicated our life and the game by finding ourselves down to 10 men for 60-70 minutes.

"For sure this is a bad defeat for us. The performance was poor.

"There is so much to work on.

"After tonight I think the same thing: we must work and have patience.

"We are in trouble right now.

"We just have to work to be good and improve the current situation.

"This remains an ugly defeat."

The former Italian national team boss then said that he was not magician, and the only answer to Tottenham's problem was hard work and self-belief.

"The only magic I can do is to work," he added.

"To bring work and work to improve, to bring my methods, my ideas of football. But we have to understand that we need time."

Spurs return to Premier League action on Sunday with a trip to Burnley.