On Friday, the Tottenham manager had to make final preparations for the Premier League meeting with Manchester City, but admitted that the postponement of that game had allowed him to prepare differently for the visit to Lisbon to face Sporting in the Champions League on Tuesday. Choosing a stronger side. It also enabled him to experience a “historic” moment he said he will never forget. “What happened in England in the last few days is a shock,” Conte said. “She was 96 and frankly for me it was very hard to believe she had died: in your head, you think the Queen is immortal.” “Unfortunately the queen is dead. We were all sad because we are talking about a man whose service to this country was outstanding. At this time there is a great sadness in the land. I live in London and on Friday, there is an atmosphere and I went to Buckingham Palace like a normal person – because I am a normal person with a heart – to experience this situation because I will definitely remember it for the rest of our lives. And then the Premier League made an important decision to stop and showed great respect for death.” “We are talking about a situation that will go down in history in the future,” Conte explained. “Being here at this moment, living this is definitely a sad moment, but at the same time it’s a special moment because we’re talking about the death of a queen. I will keep this in my heart and mind for the rest of my life.” Conte admitted the postponement of the City game had changed his plans for this encounter and insisted again on the need to rotate his squad – even if it is difficult for the players to get used to it. With Richarlison adding to Spurs’ attacking options, this now includes Son Heung-min, who he previously said he would be “crazy” to leave. “Not playing on Saturday allowed us to recover better and the situation has changed because when you play every two, three days you need rotation or you risk injury,” Conte said. “The game against City that was postponed allowed us to recover well and I was more relaxed in choosing the starting line-up. It let me try something different. I have changed some things in my mind. The postponement of the Premier League helped us recover and give us the opportunity to pick the best line-up [against Sporting] and then for the next game against Leicester.” The problem may be further. “If we don’t play [against Leicester] the schedule to find time and space to recover these games is very, very difficult,” Conte said. Start your evenings with the Guardian’s view of the world of football Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “We have four players for three positions [up front], and every manager likes to have those kinds of problems,” he continued. “That makes it harder for me to choose, but it’s the right way because when you play in a competition like the Champions League you need a deep squad. We started the season with Harry [Kane]Sonny and Dejan [Kulusevski] and in the last games I prefer[ed] to play Richie.” “When to build something important and ambitious and fight to win, we have to change our habit. Otherwise it means you want to stay where you were. We have ambitions, but the players have to accept the rotation. I am here to change the whole habit and the habit was that the players used to play in every game but this habit means you don’t have a chance to win every game. “You try to make the players happy, but a big club has a big squad. At the moment we don’t but we are starting to go down that road. So if I drop one of those four players, it’s normal and it’s good.”
